


Take your time coming home

by alexanger



Series: We're Okay [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: "I swear it's just physical", Choking on dick, Chubby Kink, F/M, Face-Sitting, Feeding Kink, Fisting, Internalized Transphobia, Light misgendering as kink, M/M, Mild Humiliation, Multi, Nonbinary Eliza, Oral Sex, Past John/Alex, Past Sexual Abuse, Surgery, Threesome, trans alexander
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-16
Updated: 2017-05-04
Packaged: 2018-07-24 08:21:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 48,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7501029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexanger/pseuds/alexanger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Laurens has been deployed for ages. He turns up in town again one day and firmly reinserts himself in Alexander and Eliza's life.</p>
<p>[Tags will be updated as the fic progresses.]</p>
<p>Listen to the beautiful <a href="http://8tracks.com/subreid/we-re-okay">8tracks mix</a> for this universe! By <a href="http://laflams.tumblr.com">laflams</a>/<a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/subreid/pseuds/lcfayctte">subreid</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Alexander is on his way home from therapy when his phone rings.

He doesn’t recognize the number. He squints at it, slightly uncomfortable, but he pushes himself to answer.

“Hello?”

_“Alex?”_

“Uh, yeah, who’s this?” The voice is familiar, but not familiar enough that he can really place it.

_“Dude! It’s John!”_

Oh.

He wants to be happy to hear from his ex boyfriend, but there’s a lot of feelings there that Alex wasn’t really ready for. He takes a deep breath and prepares to respond but John beats him to it.

_“I’m in town right now, is it cool if I stop by? I haven’t seen you since the wedding. That’s, like, forever.”_

“Yeah,” Alex agrees.

_“Cool, so I’m around for a while, what say I swing by your place and we can catch up?”_

“Uh, okay.”

_“How’s 8 sound to you? I need to get settled still and shower, I’m gross from the plane, but I’m really pumped to see you!”_

“Uh, same. Sure,” Alex manages. He wonders exactly why his mouth is agreeing so readily when his brain wants him to slow the fuck down and refuse.

_“Awesome! Okay, text me the address. See you in a bit!”_ John makes an obscene kissing noise into the phone and Alex echoes it just as the line goes dead.

John. Okay. Alex wonders if John remembers getting drunk and upset at the reception, pulling Alexander aside, whispering that he could hardly stand to see the newlyweds together.

It’s already been such a long day - therapy takes so much out of Alexander, and he feels the exhaustion setting in as he makes his way to the bus stop.

At least, he thinks, he won’t be alone when John shows up. At least he’ll have Eliza on his side.

 

“Oh, that’s fantastic!” Eliza exclaims as Alexander catches her up. “We haven’t seen John in so long. It must be - the wedding, right? When we last saw him? You must be so excited!”  
“Uh … yeah,” Alex mumbles.

“I’ll see what we have by way of food - I thought we could just do takeout tonight, a treat after your session, but - wait. Alex, are you okay with this after your session?”

“Um.” Alex pauses. “Not … really?”

Eliza sighs. “Okay, so the saying-no issue is definitely still there. Do you want to bail, love? We can say I’ve had a long day at work and I’m not up to it.”

“I already said yes and I know I can push through. Like, if I keep putting it off, it’ll just get worse, you know? He’s not a bad person, and I don’t want to feel this way about him,” Alex says.

“I understand. Well, let’s get through it, and then tonight you and I can work out all that tension, sound good?” Eliza tangles her fingers in the mess of his hair and kisses him, and he hums appreciatively into her lips. Even just that kiss is enough to get him wet.

“Pre-reward?” he asks hopefully. There’s definitely time for a quickie.

“Nope. I’m not prewarding you, pretty boy. You be patient.” Eliza pecks his lips with finality. “Help me figure out what kind of dinner we can throw together.”

 

John arrives with alcohol, and Alex is immediately mollified. It’s nice alcohol, too - not, like, rich people alcohol, but who can say no to a bottle of Bailey’s? There’s even a black ribbon tied around the neck of the bottle, which brings up a whole avalanche of memories for Alex, who wonders idly if John did that on purpose. He unties the ribbon and allows Eliza to squirrel it away somewhere. Out of sight, out of mind.

Except not really out of mind. He ruminates on it as they settle on the couch, trying not to watch the clean lines of John’s shoulders or the way his fingers cradle the handle of his cane.

“How have things been? You haven’t been back in town for a while,” Eliza says, covering up for Alexander’s uncomfortable silence.

“Fine! I mean, I’m not being deployed anymore,” John replies. “Ever since I got injured, I haven’t been in any kind of shape to see action, so they found me a job as a paralegal on the base out here. Guess law school was a good idea after all. My dad did _something_ right making me go.” He laughs, and it rolls in his chest, deep and throaty and _entirely unfair._ Alex can’t help the surge of warmth that laugh gives him.

“That sounds a lot less worrying. We didn’t hear much from you after the wedding so a few times we’d had cause to - but you’re alright, and that’s what matters,” Eliza says. Alex nods mutely.

“So what have you two been doing? It’s been so long since I’ve really gotten to speak to you,” John says. Eliza launches into a long speech about her career - she’s a youth worker in an alternative school and she finds herself, quite often, in the kind of drama you really only read about in fiction, the kind you don’t expect to see in real life. Alex has started countless novels around those ideas; he speaks up, mentioning that, and adding that it usually seems too cheap, to use a poor kid’s shitty situation for profit.

“I seem to recall you had plenty of your own shitty situations,” John tells him, and they make eye contact for a second. “Why not use your own?”

Alexander’s tongue goes heavy in his mouth. “It never seemed like the right time,” he manages, woodenly.

“Sometimes the right time sneaks up on you, and you have to pounce on it, or it goes by.” John offers a smile that’s probably meant to be encouraging, but Alex feels his stomach knot.

He’s seen that smile too many times; he knows exactly what it means. That was the smile that egged him on whenever he thought he was reaching his limit, or pulled him back from danger; that smile was the one he used to cling to when things seemed too uncertain, too frightening, and it looked like there was no way out. John shouldn’t have this power anymore. John left, John went away, and this man who came back - he shouldn’t be able to settle into this place in Alexander’s life, this place where he smiles that irritating fucking smile and reaches right into Alexander’s heart and tears something open.

“Anyway, I’ve been writing a lot,” he says, instead of what he really wants to say, which is: _Fuck you and your smile and your perfect fucking teeth and your freckles and your pretty face._

It took so much energy to work himself up to saying that, and now it’s gone. He sits sullenly as Eliza speaks, which is a direct reversal of how they usually are - Eliza often sits silent while Alexander dominates a conversation, but he finds that with John sitting there, looking so composed and well put together, he’s run out of words, for maybe the first time in his life.

Eliza, scrambling for something to say, settles on, “so I know you two were together for a while, but I never actually heard the full story of how you met.”

Alex stares at her with horror plainly written on his face. She raises her hand long enough to sign _sorry_ quickly against her chest and then looks back to John.

“That,” John is saying, and he’s either failed to notice that little scramble or he’s politely pretending that he didn’t see, “is a hell of a story.”

“A long story,” Alexander agrees.

“We were both at the pub on campus one night,” John starts.

“No, you were there, drinking with your buddies, and I walked in,” Alex corrects. “And you were having an argument -”

“Right, about colonization, and Laf was talking out their ass -”

“An impressive feat,” Eliza says drily.

“And I walked in and you were all at the table next to the _only other table open in the whole place,_ which, gross,” Alex says, smiling. “And you wouldn’t shut up. You were all making the exact same point and saying it slightly differently, and none of you were listening to each other, so you just kept talking in circles and no one could make a point.”

“So Alex stands up,” John laughs, “and he turns around, and Jesus - you know that face he makes when he’s really pissed? He’s making that face, and he opens his mouth, and he says, ‘you are all saying EXACTLY THE SAME THING.’ And then he tells us he isn’t drunk enough to be listening to that bullshit.”

“And that’s when John offered to buy me a drink,” Alexander smiles.

“Shit, you were so little. That was before you could grow your beard, remember?”

Alexander’s smile stays on his face but he stiffens a little. “Yeah,” he says. He remembers all too well.

“Anyway, I bought him a beer and he sat down with us, and before long he’s two beers in and yelling louder than anyone at the table. And shit, Herc was _loud_ back then. You yelled Hercules down,” John says to Alex, with awe in his voice.

“It’s all in the diaphragm,” Alexander says.

“Finally Alex gets us to a point where we realize we’re saying the same thing, and then this fucking asshole Samuel, who was in my Indigenous studies class, starts talking about how we improved the life of the Native American or whatever, and Alex fucking jumps up -”

“Oh my God, I was so mad,” Alexander laughs.

“Alex jumps up and goes on this tirade about how Sam is everything wrong with America, and you called it - what was it? The land of ungrateful immigrants.”

“Yep. Everyone shitting on everyone else about who’s whitest and brightest, and ignoring the fact that it wasn’t even the white man’s country anyway.”

“You absolutely destroyed him, and I fell in love,” John says.

There’s a moment that draws out; no one speaks.

“So did I,” Alex admits.

“What, with me?”

He sees a way to salvage his pride. “No,” Alexander says, “with the look on Sam’s face as he realized how hard I wrecked him.”

John and Eliza both laugh, and Alexander feels warm. He can do this - he suddenly knows that with absolute certainty.

“After that I had to buy him another beer, and then another, and then I’ve got a drunk Alex on my hands, and he’s like a painfully handsome koala when he’s drunk,” John continues. “So I’m turning around to talk to Herc and all of a sudden I feel lips on my ear.”

“An easy mistake to make, in my defense. Your freckles are so blinding they make it hard to see facial features.”

“I turn around and look at him, and Alex, I swear to God, looks me in the eye and says, ‘I fell.’ “

Even now Alexander’s face goes warm at the thought. “It’s hard to stay balanced when you’re drunk,” he protests.

“Long story short, he keeps getting drunker, and then he’s staggering on his feet and I decide I need to take him home. I get him back to his place, the place he’s sharing with that nerd Aaron, and I get him in bed all snug.”

That’s one of the few things that Alex remembers from that night. He has clear memories of John helping him into bed, and stopping him -

_“I can’t sleep like this,” Alex says._

_“What, why not?”_

_“You have to help me take off my shirt.”_

_“I’m not gonna do that, you’re drunk, it’s not ethical.”_

_“You don’t understand - “ Alex grasps for words. “Look, I can’t sleep in my top, okay?”_

_“Okay, what’s the big deal?”_

_And that’s when he bursts into tears. “I’m not a real guy, okay - I need to take off these bandages on my chest but I can’t do it alone, my hands feel numb -”_

_John helps him lift his shirt and undo the bandages, politely averting his eyes. Alexander struggles to stem the flow of tears._

_“Hey,” John says, as he puts the bandages on Alexander’s dresser. “If it makes you feel better, you probably have as much boob as I do.”_

_“That’s different,” says Alex._

_“How? Check it.” John pulls his shirt up and shows Alex a rather impressive chubby belly. “Look at these tits. Look at em. A B cup at least. Okay? So you’re just as much a guy as I am.”_

_Alex grins. “Damn, you’re very boobs,” he manages._

_“Very boobs indeed. Go to sleep,” John tells him._

\- and Alex finds the breath catching in his chest a little.

“And then I left my number on a piece of paper on the counter and his roommate let me out,” John finishes. “The rest is history. I’m irresistible.”

It wasn’t so much that John was irresistible - it was that Alex had to call and make sure John hadn’t told anyone. John, of course, hadn’t said a word, and that got Alex interested enough to go to dinner with him.

He hadn’t really remembered how much that impacted him, but it all comes rushing back as John tells the story.

Alexander can’t help but reach over to squeeze John’s hand.

“You were a great ally,” he says.

John smiles that irritating fucking smile again, but this time Alexander feels strengthened. “I know,” he says, and Alexander only wants to punch him a little.

 

John doesn’t leave until half the Bailey’s is gone and it’s past midnight. He finally calls a cab and gets up off the couch, stumbling a little, and Eliza and Alex support him to the door.

“I need to come hang out with you more often,” he says. “I’ve missed doing this.”

“Me too,” Alex admits, and Eliza nods.

“You’re always welcome. Text Alex and let us know you got home safe, okay?”

“Okay,” John agrees as his phone buzzes. “That’s the cab company calling, it must be outside. Listen, I’m glad you’re in a ground floor suite - I would _not_ be able to do stairs half-drunk with my new leg.”

“Go, get your cab,” Eliza says, shooing him. “Tell us about that next time you’re here.”

John waves and lets himself out. As the door shuts behind him, Alexander slumps against the wall.

“What do you need, love?” Eliza says, tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear.

“I need you to fuck me for a year. Bedtime?” Alex pleads. Eliza smiles.

“Bedtime,” she agrees. She produces the black ribbon from the Bailey’s bottle. “I have some plans for you tonight.”

Alexander shivers with delight, and suddenly the black ribbon doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos water my plants when i forget to. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John takes Alex and Eliza camping.

The bed that Eliza and Alexander share is set up for hard use. The bedframe has straps attached to each corner for restraints, there’s a foam strip along the top of the headboard so it doesn’t smash against the wall, and the drawers that slide underneath the bed are full of toys and tools. Usually, when they walk into the bedroom like this - Eliza’s hand on the back of Alexander’s neck, a gentle reminder of dominance - Alexander feels hunger swell inside of him just at the sight of the bed. Tonight, he’s surprised to find he just feels a little sad.

“What do you want me to do to you, pretty boy?” Eliza asks. She tugs a little on his hair, and Alex makes a soft noise.

“I don’t really want to make decisions,” he says.

“Well, Alex, we can’t have sex unless you know exactly what’s going on and you consent to it.” Eliza sits on the bed and pats the mattress beside her, and Alex sits obediently. “What’s going on?”

“It’s really weird having him here again. You know, when he left, I thought that was it. I guess I got too used to the idea that he might never come back,” Alexander says. “He broke up with me when he knew he was being deployed, remember? I told him I’d be happy to wait, and he was the one who said no - and by then I had you, and I’ve never fallen in love so hard or so fast. So I have to be grateful for that; imagine if I’d missed out on having you in my life?”

He flops over onto his side and lays his head in her lap. Eliza smooths the hair back from his face and runs her fingers through it, scratching at the back of his neck. Alexander has a habit of getting affectionate when he’s sleepy or when he’s had a hard time; during the day he tends to be combative and snarly, so these moments are treasures.

“I’m glad we found each other,” she tells him.

“Me too. But he made that decision without really listening to me. I think he thought he was going to die over there, and shit, I don’t blame him - but he was so fucking final about it.”

There’s that anger again. “Tell me,” she says.

“Like, why do you even go into the army if you have that much money _and_ a degree? It never made any sense to me. And he makes this whole speech, like, ‘if I can serve my country,’ bullshit bullshit bullshit. The war isn’t even _ethical_ and he _knows_ that. Probably spent too much time listening to his dad. The day before he ships out, he comes and sits me down, and he has this whole speech about how he wants to protect me, and like - I’m not a fucking child, I’m not _fragile.”_

“I don’t think anyone who thinks you’re fragile has any idea what you’ve dealt with,” Eliza agrees.

“He knows a bunch of it, though, and he still treated me like this delicate little flower. I wish I’d punched him,” Alex admits.

“I thought you did punch him?”

“No, I punched him that other time. You know, when he asked me out.”

“Right,” Eliza says, the ghost of a smile flitting around her lips.

“But I should have punched him again. Twice. Once for leaving, and once for acting like I couldn’t take it.”

“As a rule I don’t condone violence -”

Alex turns to look pointedly at the permanent straps attached to the bed frame. “You _don’t?”_ he asks, feigning surprise.

“Alright, but you ask for that.”

“And he was asking for it,” Alexander insists.

“Okay, so next time we see him, punch him. But if you do I’m going to whip you for it.”

Alexander kisses her stomach. “You know that only tempts me more, right?”

Eliza grins. “You caught me. I kinda want to see you punch him.”

And suddenly there’s the hunger surging in his chest. Alexander swallows, certain that it’s about to explode out of him, and says, “so about my reward -?”

 

John texts again a couple days later, inviting Alex and Eliza to go camping with him for the weekend in a park near the ocean. Alexander texts back, insisting that he and Eliza can’t afford to rent equipment or pay for gas, and he hopes that will be the end of it - but John replies saying he’ll pay for equipment, and the campsite, and the gas, and alcohol besides, and Alexander can’t help but say yes.

“You know, you’d think that after getting married, you’d settle down a little,” Eliza tells him. “But you’re just as wild as you were when we met - the lure of getting piss drunk in the woods is a siren call to you.”

“I’m probably, like, at least part wolf,” Alex agrees.

“That would explain why you’re so fuzzy today.”

“I don’t like shaving,” Alex complains, and Eliza gently tugs on his sideburns.

“That comes with the beard, pretty boy. We could always wax it.”

 _“Jesus,”_ Alex says, half horrified and half intrigued. “That would hurt. Like, a _lot.”_

“I’m not waxing your face.”

Alexander pouts. “Okay.”

 

John tells them he’ll pick them up Friday afternoon, and both Alex and Eliza are expecting some kind of SUV. They aren’t expecting a Winnebago to pull up in front of their building.

Alexander’s eyes go wide.

“Well,” Eliza says, “at least we aren’t sleeping in tents.”

 

The start of the drive is awkward. Alex takes the passenger seat at the front of the cab, which means Eliza has to sit on the sofa behind what John refers to as the captain’s seat.

“Feel free to shove that over if it’s weirding you out,” he says of the prosthetic leg laying on the couch beside Eliza. “I take it off to drive - I can’t feel the pedals as well with it as with my other leg, so I just remove the temptation. I’ve accidentally floored it too many times.”

Eliza buckles it in as John pulls away from the curb. “We’ll make friends.”

“Since when have you had an RV?” Alexander asks. “This is the least John thing I’ve ever seen. I expected you to go full lumberjack the second you walked into the woods.”

“Don’t you remember the little trailer I had back in college? We went to Long Island, out to the state park there -”

“Shit!” Alexander grins. “Yeah, we took Herc’s truck and hitched up your trailer, and Laf got sick, what, ten minutes into the drive?”

“And they threw up all over their window so we had to pull over and scrub out the back seat and Herc was _pissed,”_ John laughs.

“So we gave Laf the front seat the whole way up and made them crank the window if they were feeling sick, yeah. Shit, I’d forgotten about your little trailer. That thing was so cramped, man -”

“It was even worse cause you brought your roommate along, and he used to get pissed off hearing us getting up to shit at night -”

“- and he just complained the whole time, like, ‘I thought they were bad enough when we _weren’t_ all sleeping in a cramped trailer together,’ remember?”

“Your roommate was _weird,_ man,” John says.

“Nah, he was cool. We hang out sometimes,” Alexander tells him.

“He hit on my sister once,” Eliza offers from the sofa.

“Which one? That makes a huge difference in how I’m supposed to react,” John says.

“Angelica.”

“I hope she kicked his ass.” There’s satisfaction in John’s voice.

“She did,” Eliza assures him. “Just, like, the _worst_ reaming out you’ve ever seen. I think he’s still a little scared of her.”

“We’re getting off topic, as much as I love to talk about Angie scaring men. You never finished telling me about this thing,” Alexander says, gesturing at the RV.

“Oh, shit, right. Well, I came back for your wedding, right, and wanted to go camping while I had leave, but I slept in a tent enough overseas, so I figured I’d buy an RV. This thing’s pretty great - that sofa you’re on folds out into a double bed, and there’s another bed that folds down over the seats here, and then the master bed in the back, so we could have a reunion camping trip if the guys are into it. I haven’t been able to get hold of Laf but Herc’s always fast responding to my texts.”

Alex hums a little. “Well, Laf went back home a couple years ago, but they visit sometimes, so I’m sure we could pull it together. And I know Aaron can get time off work pretty easily - he’s doing law too, you know?”

“No shit,” John says approvingly.

“I think we should do a trip with my sisters,” Eliza suggests.

“Oh, holy shit,” Alex says, bouncing a little in his seat. “I want to see Peggy drunk in the woods. I want to see _Angie_ drunk in the woods. I want to see all the Schuylers drunk in the woods -”

“This is either the best idea, or the worst idea,” Eliza says.

“Well, we’ll see how this trip goes. I haven’t had any drunk escapades so far in this thing, and I don’t know how well it stands up to the destructive power of even a single Hamilton, let alone two Hamiltons and two Schuylers,” John says. “Or is that one Hamilton, two Schuylers, and one Schuyler-Hamilton?”

“Four Schuylers, actually. They adopted me.” Alexander grins.

“That’s a lie, you just bribed Angelica by agreeing to fight people for her and she was forced to tolerate you.”

“I thought that was how family worked,” Alex says, faking innocence.

John nods. “That sounds plausible to me.”

Alexander is put in charge of manning John’s phone and watching the map. The third time Alex neglects to warn John in time to turn off of the highway, the phone is taken away from Alex and given to Eliza, who manages to lead them right to a McDonald’s drive through instead of to the road they need to get on for the park.

“How the fuck did you do that without me even noticing?” John asks as they pull into the drive through.

“Don’t ask,” Alex tells him. “You’ll never find out. Probably witchcraft.”

Eliza smiles, the picture of innocence. “I deserve fries and a milkshake.”

“For steering us in the wrong direction?”

“For making sure you boys eat, because I know you forgot to get any kind of groceries, didn’t you?”

“Alcohol is a kind of grocery,” John mutters.

So the next stop is the nearest grocery store, where Alexander stubbornly insists upon picking up half a dozen bags of marshmallows. Eliza, endlessly patient, manages to distract him long enough to put back five of the bags and load his arms up with bread, smokies, and potatoes instead.

John lags behind them, complaining. “I always forget how much of a pain it is to put my leg back on,” he tells them. “It’s supposed to click a couple times when you put the pin in but it won’t _stop_ clicking -”

It’s true; he clicks with every step. Eliza eventually instructs him to wait near the check out while she and Alex pick up food.

“That way, it’s a surprise,” she says, smoothly cutting off his protests.

It certainly is a surprise when she and Alex return with an entire chocolate cake alongside more suitable camping food, but John doesn’t protest. Cake seems to be a camping necessity because he asks, “wasn’t there a bigger one?”

“That was the biggest one, but we can get two,” Alexander suggests.

John’s face flushes as he asks, “can you _eat_ all that?”

“There’s nothing I can’t eat,” Alexander begins, “just ask Eliza -”

Eliza smacks him on the arm. “Manners.”

In the end, they do buy a second cake, and they leave the store with more than enough food to last the three of them the weekend. “This will be great if, you know, for whatever reason we get stuck in the woods for a month and have no other food supply,” John says. “You’d better be willing to take a bunch of this home after the weekend.”

“I have never in my life said no to cake,” Alexander says.

He wonders if he’s imagining the hungry look in John’s eyes when he says, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

With Eliza in charge of the map (having promised she actually _will_ lead them the right way this time, for real), Alexander becomes trip DJ. His first choice is thoroughly bizarre indie music that has John asking, “are they using instruments, or just harnessing the power of sheer hipsterism for the backing track?”

“It’s one of those bands with an animal in the name, so you know they’re strange. There’s probably some kind of rule. You know, Freelance Whales, Miniature Tigers, Giraffes? Giraffes!, Minus the Bear, etcetera. It’s a formula - pick animal, create weirdness,” poor, long-suffering Eliza says. She turns to the prosthetic leg and says, “I’m so sorry you have to endure my husband’s unfathomable music tastes -”

“Fine, I’ll change it,” Alexander tells them, but his next choice is electroswing, which just confuses John further.

“Your leg is enjoying it,” Eliza says in an effort to pacify John.

“If you’re not into this, I’ll turn on a musical instead,” Alex offers.

“Nope! No, this is fine, stick with this,” John is quick to say.

“It could be worse,” Eliza tells him. “He could be playing his Newfoundland folk music. Don’t,” she adds fiercely as Alex lunges for the phone. “We can handle electroswing for a little while longer, and then I’m picking the music.”

Alex pouts but obeys.

“Well-trained,” John says, with awe in his voice.

“I’m a wizard,” Eliza agrees.

 

The campsite turns out to be right on the ocean, and Eliza is vibrating in her seat as John pulls in.

“Park,” she says urgently. “Just pull right in. Stop driving. You don’t need to park perfectly, just stop driving -”

“You know there’s a bathroom in the back,” John tells her.

“Yeah, that’s not what’s going on. You could just hop out, John will stop moving long enough for you to get out, just go,” Alex says.

Eliza manages to hold out until the RV is turned off, and then she’s out of her seat, shedding clothing and running straight towards the water.

“Is that -”

“A bathing suit, yes,” Alex tells John.

“Was she wearing that the whole time?”

“Eliza _really_ likes swimming,” is the only explanation.

Eliza stays in the ocean for nearly two hours as John and Alexander arrange their firewood and figure out dinner.

“There’s a stove in the RV,” John says.

“Counter-argument: cooking food over a fire is way more satisfying,” Alex argues.

“Shit, you’re right. Judge rules in favour of the plaintiff for fire cooking.”

Alex, who has been digging through the RV for the alcohol, raises a bottle of Sourpuss in celebration. “Hell yes.”

Eliza returns from the ocean, soaked and shivering, and drops a single seashell into John’s hand. “I found you more, but then I got distracted and lost them all.”

John goes to drop it but Alexander stops him. “Don’t refuse a gift from my wife.”

So John puts it on his head instead and declares it his new favourite hat. Eliza, seemingly very pleased with herself, wraps herself in a towel and sits beside the fire Alexander is attempting to build.

The fire, eventually, is cobbled together, and the three of them sit roasting smokies and helping themselves to the gratuitous amount of alcohol John brought along. As the sun sets, Eliza pulls both John and Alex closer against the night breezes; Alex certainly has no complaints, although the sight of John wrapping an arm around Eliza’s waist makes him feel strangely tight inside. It’s not jealousy, not quite - but whatever emotion it is, there’s a lot of it.

“I was really nervous about coming out here with you,” Alexander confesses as he stares into the fire.

“Yeah?” John asks.

“You know. It’s been so long since - well, everything.” He pauses and Eliza squeezes his hand encouragingly.

“Yeah,” John agrees.

“Yeah,” Alexander echoes.

The three of them sit in silence for a moment, snuggled together. The park is quiet; there aren’t all that many other guests, and they’re far from the gates of the campground, well away from the showers and bathrooms, in one of the less sought-after spots. For a little while there’s nothing but the sound of the ocean lapping on the rocky shore and the rustle of wind in the trees.

“Well,” John says finally, his voice hushed, “I’m glad you came.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos pump pure caffeine straight into my veins so that i never have to sleep. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The camping trip takes a not-entirely-unexpected turn.

John insists that Alexander and Eliza take the master bed.

“It’s a queen,” he tells them as he folds the sofa out, “and this one is - not a queen. Probably a double? So since you’re married, you get the bigger bed. That’s just how it works.”

“Will you be comfortable enough there?” Eliza asks.

“More than comfortable. This one’s harder, anyway - more what I’m used to.”

So Eliza and Alex take the master bed. Eliza showers off the salt the ocean left in her hair and on her skin, and Alex flops on the bed in his boxers and binder. There’s some shuffling from the cab end of the RV - sheets rustling as John moves, and Alex, half-drunk, can’t help but imagine the lines of his body, hard from service, muscle rippling under freckles. Back in college, John was soft, and Alex was scrawny, more bone than flesh; but Alex seems to have taken all of John’s lost softness, putting on weight on his thighs and belly, and John looks like a wall now. Alex wonders what it would feel like to put his hands on John’s chest.

He remembers the sound of John’s voice saying, _you probably have just as much boob as I do,_ and then his mind reels and suddenly the John in his head is whispering, _you’re so handsome, look at you, Alex, look at your body, fuck -_

 _I have you beat on the boob front now,_ Alex thinks bitterly.

The shower shuts off and Eliza emerges from the tiny bathroom, wrapped in one towel and scrubbing at her head with another. “Shove over,” she says unceremoniously to Alexander.

“Nope, this whole bed is mine,” he tells her.

“That’s cool, I’ll go climb in with John.”

“Very funny,” Alex grumps, rolling aside to make room for her. “Get the light?”

Eliza turns the light out, hangs up both her towels and slips into bed. “It’s chilly, did you _have_ to open the window?”

“Yes. I’m a space heater, come here, I’ll keep you warm.”

She snuggles up and Alex feels his hips buck a little as she traces a hand over his chest. “You are _not_ allowed to sleep in your binder,” she tells him.

“Then take it off me.” He says this in a challenging whisper; Eliza straddles him, pulls him partially upright, and strips it off. The cold air hits his back and he feels his nipples stiffen, and he wriggles his hips a little, daring her to keep going.

“There’s no door, Alex,” she says.

“I can be quiet.”

“No, you can’t. Remember the time the landlord had to call us and tell us to chill out ‘cause the folks upstairs complained?”

“Okay, well, I can be _quieter_ -”

“We may as well just wake up John and ask him to join us,” Eliza says.

“Join what?” John says, his voice surprisingly clear from across the RV. “Whatever it is, I’m in.”

Eliza stifles a giggle; Alexander freezes with horror. In the half-light, Alex stares desperately at Eliza’s face and signs, _FUCK._

“Seriously, what are we doing? I’m down for pretty much anything, just let me know if you need me to put my leg back on - takes a couple minutes.”

Eliza signs, _if you want to fuck him now’s your chance._

_Wait. Do you want to fuck him?_

_He’s not bad looking._

_What,_ Alexander signs, and then again, more emphatic, for good measure, _WHAT._

_Do you want to fuck him?_

There’s a surge of heat through his clit and Alexander’s hips buck, and his eyes widen as he realizes, yes, he really, really does want to fuck John.

Before he can stop himself, he signs, _yes._

“Do you need your leg for sex?” Eliza asks.

There’s a moment before John responds, with laughter in his voice, “no, unless you have a thing for people with two legs.”

“Then get over here.”

Another pause, and then John says, “what?”

“Dude, I dare you,” Alexander says.

“Motherfucker,” is the emphatic response, “give me a second -”

There’s a pronounced thud, and then the sound of John’s cane hitting the floor echoes through the RV.

“Last chance to back out?” Eliza whispers.

“I blame this on you,” Alexander says.

Then John appears, wild-eyed and leaning heavily on his cane. He’s bare-chested, standing there in his boxers; Alex sees the lines of his muscles and is overcome by the need to touch him.

“So, theoretically,” Alexander says, trying to sound casual, “how do you feel about fucking my wife and I?”

“I mean, I’m not super into women anymore?” John admits.

“I’m nonbinary,” Eliza informs him.

“Consider me chastised. Let’s do this.”

Alex and Eliza shuffle over and John throws himself onto the bed. The three of them stare at each other, and then Eliza takes the initiative and tangles her fingers in John’s hair, pulling him close to kiss him.

Alexander watches desperately as his wife kisses his ex-boyfriend. He can see the moment that Eliza turns her head and opens her mouth and thrusts her tongue into John’s mouth; he can see John getting hard, and he can’t help himself. He reaches out and rubs a finger against John’s nipple.

John turns his attention to Alex, then, breaking away from his kiss with Eliza, and his breath catches as his eyes rake down Alexander’s body. “Baby, you got _chubby_ since college,” is what falls out of his mouth.

Alexander covers his stomach and chest with his hands and John scrambles to apologize. “Shit, that came out wrong - I’m sorry, I don’t mean anything bad, it’s just really, _really_ fucking hot -”

Eliza grins; Alexander feels that heat in his clit again, and his inner exhibitionist takes over. “You like your boys soft, huh?”

“Fuck, yes,” is what comes out of John’s mouth.

“Look at him, John,” Eliza says. Her hand strokes across Alexander’s belly, following the dark line of hair that leads into the waistband of his boxers; her fingers dig in a little, showing off just how chubby Alex is, and her other hand tweaks John’s nipple. “Look at that soft belly. You should touch him.”

John complies with both hands, working Alexander’s belly. One of his hands touches Alexander’s chest, fingertips resting against his sternum, and he asks, “may I?”

“Mmhm.” Alexander’s assent segues into a groan as John squeezes one of his breasts, and then it’s John’s turn to groan as Eliza palms the hard line of his cock through his shorts.

“Do you have a condom?” Alex asks as John kisses the side of his neck.

John stops dead. “Shit.”

“No condoms?” Eliza asks.

“No, I wasn't exactly anticipating this.”

“I can’t fuck you without a condom -”

 _“I_ could fuck you without a condom,” Eliza says smugly.

“You and your birth control,” Alex complains.

“So what’s on the table?”

“You can fuck Eliza,” Alex mutters.

“What else?” John asks. “Hands? Oral?” He pauses and grins, and Alex knows what he’s about to say a split second before he asks, “anal?”

“Slow waaaaay down. How about we set a limit on tonight? Oral is as far as we go,” Eliza suggests.

Alex and John immediately start complaining; Alex grumbles, making a noise halfway between the groan of a disgruntled dog and a rickety lawn mower, and John protests, “that’s not even all the way.”

Eliza smacks Alexander on the leg. “Hush,” she says, and as she turns to John she continues, “that’s your choice, big guy. You can either have oral or nothing.”

“Oral sounds good,” John says hurriedly.

“Good. Get working.” Eliza snaps the waistband of John’s shorts, and he strips out of them; Alexander groans at the sight of him, the lines of his stomach, the way his lower abs meet his hip flexors. He’s struck with a sudden urge to bite the edges of those muscles, lick the skin where they cut away.

Eliza has taken the opportunity to pull John’s hair. “Come here,” she tells him, guiding his head to her breasts. His hands plant on the bed either side of her hips, and his body stretches behind him, knees bent, his weight resting on his right hip. His cock stands up, bobbing slightly with his pulse; he looks up at Eliza with a cheeky grin as she continues, “I’ve heard good things about your mouth, so I hope you live up to the hype.”

John flicks his tongue across one of her nipples, then sucks it into his mouth. He groans; Alex can tell it’s for show, so he reaches over and grasps John’s cock, giving it a couple firm pumps. John’s groan falters and cracks and surges and it’s suddenly genuine.

“Been too long since you’ve had your hand on that,” John says, his lips stroking against Eliza’s nipple as he speaks, and Eliza snaps to look.

“Alex,” she breathes, “holy shit.”

Alexander grins, rolls onto his stomach, and kisses up along John’s left thigh. John twitches a little, his knee bending.

“That leg is still really sensitive,” he says, half-apologetically. “Nerve things since the surgery -”

“Does this feel bad?”

“No, feels really good, it’s just kinda twitchy -”

Alex bites down on his thigh and sucks a bruise into it, taking his time about it, and John lets out a shuddering moan. While Alex watches, John strokes a hand down Eliza’s belly and his fingertips brush against the dark curls above her vulva. Eliza shudders; John’s fingers slip between her lips and curl upward, and then Eliza is panting, the barest hint of sound escaping her lips.

Alexander kisses sloppily up John’s thigh to his cock and then kisses the tip, and John makes a desperate huffing sound. Eliza echoes the sound. Alex can see John’s fingers pushing into her, stroking upwards, and as John’s thumb grazes over Eliza’s clit, Alex sinks his mouth down on John’s cock. He savours the taste of pre as he bobs his head. His blowjob technique can only really be described as “messy” - he’s shamelessly sloppy, leaving John’s cock slick with saliva, all wet lips and wriggling tongue and desperate noises. He loves John’s cock, loves the way it feels when he flicks his tongue against the frenulum, loves the taste when he tongues John’s slit.

There’s a shifting in John’s hips as he whispers, “just a sec, Alex, sit up -”

Alexander obeys, his nerves still all too ready, even after all these years, to comply with John’s every command. He watches as John lays on his back and guides Eliza to straddle his face, and then he pats his thigh and says, “come here, Alex, be a good boy.”

Alex, unbearably eager, straddles John’s right leg and grinds his clit against it as he sucks John’s cock back into his mouth. Eliza is facing him and he can watch her as John eats her out. John’s tongue is visible every so often, flicking against Eliza’s clit, and with each stroke Eliza moans and her hips buck. He tries to time the way he bobs his head on John’s cock with the way John is licking Eliza, and before too long John is bucking his hips and his breathing is ragged.

Eliza grinds her cunt down against John’s face and says, “fuck me with your tongue,” and her breath hitches as the angle of John’s chin changes against her, and Alex knows his tongue must be inside her. Eliza rubs her clit with two fingers, tight little circles, her shoulders shaking; Alex sees the tightening in her abdomen, the way her thighs clench and her spine curves, and knows she’s getting close.

John taps Alex twice on the ear, their old code for _get up or get ready to swallow,_ and Alexander takes his cock as deep as he can. He pushes one finger between John’s cheeks and strokes over his asshole, just a flutter of pressure, and then John is coming in his mouth. His load is viscous and Alex splutters - it’s been too long since he’s taken a load in his mouth, it’s dripping down his chin, but he manages to swallow half of it and he lifts his face up, slick with spit and come, and Eliza sobs, “holy shit, Alex -”

Alex sees her stomach seize and relax and then she’s shuddering apart on John’s face, making choked noises. She manages to ride out her orgasm and then swings her leg over John to curl up on the mattress beside him. John kisses her forehead, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and Alex watches them for a moment, torn between jealousy and satisfaction.

“You wanna come, baby?” John asks Alex.

Alexander grinds on John’s leg. “Uh-huh,” he says.

“Tough shit.”

Eliza’s face cracks into a grin and she defers to John. Alex feels his stomach knot; there’s disappointment, but there’s excitement there, too.

“John, please -”

“What did you call me?”

Back to this, then. The years disappear and Alex feels the familiar sinking shame as he breathes, “Sir, please.”

“Better. Come here.” John pats his stomach, and Alex obligingly straddles him there. He grinds his clit against John’s hard muscle. “You’re so fucking desperate,” John says. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You want me to touch you, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you think you deserve it?”

Alexander’s face crumples and he feels the edge of tears approaching as he says, “no, sir.”

“So why should I let you come?”

“Please, sir -”

“You’re going to have to convince me.”

Alex desperately rubs himself on John’s stomach, and John swats his thigh. “No. I didn’t say you could do that. Convince me.”

“I swallowed your come -”

“You wasted half of it. Look at you,” John says, and he drags his thumb through the mess in Alexander’s beard. “Fucking disgusting. This is disgusting. You’re disgusting.”

“I’m disgusting,” Alex echoes.

“And you’re getting my stomach wet, too. Did I say you could get me wet?”

“No sir -”

“What are you going to do about it? You going to clean it off?”

“Sir -”

“Beg me to come, Alex,” John says.

So Alexander begs. “Sir, please - I want to come, I loved feeling you come and it got me so wet, sir, please. Please, please let me touch myself. Please let me come, you don’t even have to touch me, let me come, please, I’ll do it myself, and then I’ll lick you clean - I’ll clean you up, I’ll suck you off again, I won’t waste any of your come this time, please, I want to come so bad, sir, please -”

“Touch yourself,” is John’s command. Alexander wastes no time in rubbing his clit furiously. “Shit, look at you. Look at the way his belly jiggles, Eliza.”

Eliza hums in agreement.

“I love it when you watch me, sir,” Alexander breathes. His hand speeds up. “Please watch me, sir. Watch me touch myself. Please let me come, sir, let me come for you -”

He’s close and it’s hard to hold off; he has to keep backing off, slow his hand, and then work back up again. He feels John’s eyes on him and he feels bare and dissected and vulnerable. His toes curl and tears well in his eyes - not enough to spill over, but enough to prickle. The shame knots in his belly.

“Come,” John orders. It only takes a second for Alex to hit the edge and then he’s coming hard, and he isn’t entirely certain if the words coming out of his mouth make sense. He feels a hand on his thigh; it’s Eliza, soothing him.

“Breathe,” she tells him. He draws a deep, shaky breath, and then the tears spill over, and he’s sobbing as John and Eliza pull him down to cuddle.

“Good boy, good boy,” John whispers in his ear, and Eliza is talking too, murmuring, “I love you, pretty boy.”

Alex sinks down between them, laying on his stomach. “I’ll clean you up, I promise, I just need to rest for a minute -”

“Relax, Alex, don’t worry about it, that’s what towels are for.” John kisses Alexander’s cheek. Eliza, endlessly practical, pulls the duvet over the three of them and curls on her side against Alexander.

“All three of us,” she says firmly, “are going to go swimming tomorrow, because we are all absolutely filthy and sweaty and gross, and the ocean is a fun time for _everyone,_ and you can’t say no to me because I’m adorable.”

“Okay,” Alex mumbles, already half asleep.

“My prosthetic isn’t waterproof,” John protests.

“We’ll carry you.”

“I’m heavy -”

“Dude, don’t argue with Eliza, she always wins.” Alex isn’t awake enough to open his eyes, but he’s awake enough to insists, “trust me, I’m married to her, you can’t win.”

“Okay,” John agrees. “We’ll go swimming because the ocean is a fun time for everyone.”

“I knew you’d come around,” Eliza says. It’s the last thing Alex hears before he drifts off to sleep, safe between his wife and the man he thought he’d lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos make me dinner because i forgot to do that while i was writing this. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ocean is a fun time for everybody!

Alex wakes up still firmly snuggled between Eliza and John. He stretches a little, feeling Eliza cling tighter as he moves, and then turns to see John awake, lying on his back.

“Don’t make this weird,” John says softly, as he leans over to kiss Alexander’s forehead.

“Like I’m the one who’s gonna make it weird? You make  _ everything  _ weird. You have, like, a built in weirdness amplifier -”

“I love waking up to boys bickering like five year olds,” Eliza says blearily.

“Shit, that sounds like my cue to leave.” John leans over, grabs his cane off the floor and gets to his foot. As he hops back to the sofa bed, he looks over his shoulder and says, “forgot to mention it last night, but there’s a fold out door, here, by the way, if you two need to change. Uh, not that I haven’t, you know, seen everything now, but -”

“Yes,  _ thank  _ you, John,” Alex says. He presses his palms to his temples. “I didn’t even drink that much, why does my head hurt so bad?”

“Cause it’s full of arguments and you haven’t fought anyone yet today.” Eliza rolls out of bed, closes the folding door, and hunts for her bathing suit.

“Well, I’m glad you’re in a good mood. That was probably the worst decision of my life -”

“I can think of a couple others that were worse,” Eliza says.

“Name one.”

“First of all, there was -”

“No, just kidding, don’t really name them,” Alex says quickly. “Are you actually going to get dressed, or -?”

“We’re at the  _ ocean,  _ and the ocean is a fun time for  _ everybody, _ and  _ both _ of you promised me last night that we’d go swimming. So until you live up to your word I’m wearing this, and maybe you’ll feel guilty and go in the water sooner with me.” 

“Okay, so I made two huge bad decisions last night.”

“You brought a spare binder, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Alex says, “but that still doesn’t mean I want to go swimming.”

“Tough luck. You always hate water until you’re in it, and then you have fun.”

“I have fun in controlled pools well-staffed by competent lifeguards. What if I fall in?”

“Alex,” Eliza says, “the water is like, a foot deep.”

“It gets deeper the further you go out,” Alex says sulkily.

“Then don’t go far out. As for the other bad decision - why was that a bad decision?”

“Cause - he’s my ex? And we fucked him?” Alex shrugs. “Do I have to explain why that’s a bad idea?”

“Yes,” says Eliza.

“Uh, well, first of all, shit, I didn’t even know I still wanted him like that. Secondly, now it’s gonna be awkward.”

“It’ll only be awkward if you make it awkward,” Eliza tells him confidently.

“Okay, that’s fine for you because you’re a wizard, but what about us normal people?” Alex asks.

Eliza kisses him firmly. “You’ll be fine. Trust me. Now get some shorts on, we’re going swimming.”

 

John is substantially harder to sway on the swimming front.

“I most certainly did not agree to that,” he says.

“You absolutely did,” Eliza insists, and despite himself, Alexander finds himself backing her up.

“Confirmed. You did, we  _ both  _ promised.”

“My prosthetic isn’t waterproof,” John says.

“You said that last night. Cane? Crutches?”

“Okay, I have crutches, but -” John hesitates. “I mean, it’s a hassle.”

“Is it enough of a hassle that you don’t want to have fun ocean times with us?” Eliza asks. “If it’s really too hard, I’ll stop bugging you, but I’d hate to go have fun without you and leave you by yourself up here. And you could just lay on the sand -”

“The rocks,” Alexander corrects flatly.

“And just relax while we go in the water -”

“While Eliza swims and I suffer -”

“And drink a beer and watch us mess around -”

Alex snorts. 

“Hush,” Eliza says. “So, verdict?”

John frowns at her. “Fine. I’ll bring a folding chair down and sit on the beach while you go in the water.”

“Good plan. I’ll carry the chair,” Eliza says.

“I have the beer,” Alex says, digging in the fridge for a six pack. He finds a box of Monster and adds, “and I’m drinking all of these -”

“No, no you’re not, your heart will explode, you are allowed  _ one,” _ Eliza tells him.

There’s a bit of a struggle getting John out of the RV without his prosthetic, but Alex and Eliza manage to get him down the steps and balancing on his crutches. Eliza walks ahead, picking an easy path for John to follow; Alex walks behind, ready to catch him in case he loses his footing. Eliza sets up the folding chair in the water, just deep enough for John to get his legs wet but not deep enough for the seat to touch the water.

“You seem to think I enjoy getting salty fish water on me,” John gripes. Alex grins.

“Check it. Sit down,” he says. John sits, and Alex pulls one can out of the six pack, hooking the plastic ring over the armrest of the chair. “Ocean keeps your beer cold. Bam, now you’re having a good time.”

“I’d be having a better time if you took your shirt off,” John says, taking the beer from him. Alex flushes and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Children,” Eliza says to them, “we are not the only ones on this beach. Be appropriate.”

“John started it -”

“I’ll finish it,” John says, raising his eyebrows.

“Once again, we are not the only ones on this beach, be appropriate, don’t make me come back there.” This is said from several feet away, where Eliza is wading into water deep enough to reach her ribs. “If you make me get out of this water I will be very, very irritated.”

“Yeah? What are you going to do?” John calls antagonistically.

“I will come back there, steal one of your beers, and keep it. I won’t drink it, I’ll just hold it until it’s warm, and then I’ll open it and pour the whole thing in your ear.”

“Jesus,” John says.

“Don’t fuck with Eliza,” Alex tells him, rather unnecessarily. He sits in the water near John’s feet and scowls at the ocean. “Fun time for everybody my  _ ass.” _

“I seem to remember that your ass actually  _ is  _ a fun time for everybody.”

“Fuck you,” Alex says.

“Again?” John strokes a hand over Alexander’s hair, then tugs sharply at the messy bun at the back of his neck. “Well, I didn’t do everything I wanted to you last time. I guess I could indulge you.”

Alex feels his hips jerk a little and he makes a soft noise.

“Oh, what, is this doing something to you?” John asks, pulling harder on Alex’s hair.

“Yes sir,” is what falls out of Alexander’s mouth. Immediately he flushes and pulls his head away. John tugs back for a moment; but Alex keeps pulling, and John seems to understand that he crossed a line, and lets go.

“Sorry,” John says.

“It’s fine. Just - relax,” Alex mutters.

John leans back in his chair and crosses his left leg over his right. Alex glances at the residual limb and before he can stop himself, he asks, “did it hurt?”

“Which part?” John pulls another beer from the pack and hands it to him.

“Uh, all of it, I guess.”

“Yeah. I mean, I got fucked when a truck rolled over my foot, and it just wasn’t healing, like, at all. That hurt all the time. So -” John makes a slashing motion with one hand. “Made more sense to amputate and give me a prosthetic. That way I can walk. They were hoping I’d be up for active duty again, but losing one foot was enough. I learned my lesson.”

“Shit,” Alex says, in what he hopes is a sympathetic manner. He pops the beer open.

“And it hurt after the surgery too, but like, mostly just for the first couple days of healing. Then it got itchy, and that was probably the worst, ‘cause the pain meds stop the pain but it’s still fucking itchy.”

“That sounds fucked up.”

“Yeah, but I can scratch it all I want now. Sometimes I scratch it even when it’s not itchy just to prove a point.”

Alex surprises himself by laughing. “That’s the most ‘you’ thing you could have said.”

“Yeah? Shit, I guess you’d know. Anyway, sometimes it still bugs me. Feels like my ankle is stiff, so I go to roll it, and surprise - there’s no ankle. So it’s just stiff forever. It’s probably, like, the ghost of my foot haunting me, telling me off for enlisting in the first place -”

“Someone has to tell you off for that,” Alex says. “Back in college, you were so fucking anti-army.”

“Well, it was an excuse to get my dad off my back, mostly. You know how he is; a man’s greatest honour is to serve his country, blah blah blah. I think he feels guilty now ‘cause he hardly talks to me anymore. I’m not complaining.”

“Cheers to that,” Alex agrees. “Like, my dad was probably better than yours, and that’s saying something.”

“To absent fathers. At least they aren’t around to disappoint you,” John says.

Eliza drifts towards them on her stomach. Her long hair is loose and sodden, and her skin is shining with seawater and sweat. She looks thoroughly satisfied. “I knew if I left you alone long enough, you’d start talking,” she says, floating into Alexander’s lap and taking his can of beer. “Wife tax,” she adds.

Alex grins and allows her to steal a few sips. “We’ve been talking this whole trip.”

“Not about anything important, just about how shitty your music taste is,” Eliza says.

“It is pretty shitty,” John adds.

“Shut up,” says Alex, but his tone is warm.

 

Alex, Eliza and John take turns showering in the RV. Alex is the last to shower; John and Eliza lounge on the master bed, John with a towel around his waist, Eliza in a t-shirt and a pair of Alexander’s boxers.

“I better not come out to you two sucking face,” Alex says, wriggling out of his wet shirt.

“What, without you?” John flutters his eyelashes. “Mr Hamilton, such impropriety. Goodness, it’s terrible of us to be sitting here without a chaperone -”

“I have never in my life sucked face, I’ll have you know,” Eliza says.

“Oh, of course, that’s so  _ improper, _ you gently sip face with your pinkie finger extended -”

“You two suck, and one of you has to help me get my binder off,” Alex says.

“We just established that I don’t suck,” Eliza tells him. “Arms up.” With one practiced, fluid motion, she grips the bottom hem of the binder and pulls it up and off of her husband. “Now shower all that nasty fish water off you.”

“Oh, it’s a fun time when you want to convince me to swim, but it’s nasty fish water once you’ve gotten what you want out of me? Alex, your wife betrayed me,” John complains loudly.

“Be nice for two entire seconds,” Eliza says, as Alexander steps into the shower. He isn’t in there long - the most time-consuming thing he does in the shower is shampoo, and even that doesn’t take a lot of time - but his brief absence was apparently more than enough time for Eliza to have wriggled around until her head is on John’s chest and her legs are tangled with his.

There’s a jump of jealousy in Alexander’s chest, and he beats it back, but not before he has time to wonder who, exactly, he’s jealous of.

“Hey, nerd, come here,” Eliza says, before Alex has any more time to ponder his feelings. “We decided it’s time to cuddle.”

“And also movie time,” John adds.

“Jeez, good thing we’re not, like, in the woods or anything, because that would seriously make it hard to watch a movie or take showers or whatever. Good thing we aren’t camping,” Alex says.

“Shush, that’s what RVs are for. They take all the gross nature out of camping,” John tells him.

Alex pulls boxers on and wriggles between John and Eliza. He wonders, for a moment, if he should have put a t-shirt on - his chest is a constant source of embarrassment and anxiety - but Eliza puts one hand on his sternum, and then John’s hand is on his belly, nails rasping gently against the skin, and he feels like he’s melting. He heaves a contented sigh as Eliza commands the remote.

“So you have satellite TV in your RV - do you really just suck that much at camping?” Alex asks, closing his eyes.

“No, I’m just really good at not being boring. And you aren’t allowed to fall asleep ‘cause we haven’t even had dinner yet.”

“Blame Eliza for me falling asleep. She wouldn’t let me drink all the Monster,” is probably what Alex says, but he hears his voice coming from a long way off.

“This probably is the most sleep he’s had in the past year,” Eliza is saying.

“Shit, he still doesn’t sleep, huh?”

“No, too busy arguing on the internet -”

And then he’s gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos keep alexander hamilton from drinking all the monster. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John really, _really_ likes cake.

Alexander wakes up to Eliza kissing the back of his neck. “Hey, sleepy face,” she whispers in his ear. He stretches, disoriented - he’s laying on his side, and he knows he fell asleep on his back. 

“Hey,” he mumbles, and a yawn tumbles out of his mouth. “Was I asleep long?”

“Just an hour or so,” John says from where he stands by the stove. “But if you sleep any longer you won’t sleep tonight, and Eliza decided it’s time to be responsible adults instead of horrible wayward children.”

“I’m five,” Alex insists groggily.

“Nice try. You  _ just  _ had a birthday so I know for a fact you’re at least six,” Eliza tells him.

“Birthday cake,” Alex manages.

“You want cake, pretty boy?”

“Mmhm.”

John is suddenly very interested. “We have two cakes,” he says, with what seems to be barely-restrained excitement.

“Yes, we do,” Eliza says, “and we’re eating dinner first, because the potatoes are done and I want some actual food in me before we eat sugar.”

“Why do you have to be so reasonable?” Alex gripes. 

Eliza gently pats his thigh. “Someone has to keep you alive. Get up, we’ll eat, and then we can have cake. Okay?”

“Okay,” Alex says. Eliza helps him sit up and hands him a plate of potatoes and smokies, and Alex somehow manages to get a piece of potato in his mouth before closing his eyes and drifting. Eliza shakes his shoulder.

“Nope, actually time to wake up now. You want a Monster?”

“Mmhm.”

Eliza gets a can from the fridge and presses it against the back of Alexander’s neck. The cold takes a moment to process, but when it hits Alex straights up and makes a disgruntled noise, and Eliza puts the can in his hand and pops the top.

“He really doesn’t function well without caffeine, huh?” John asks.

“Yep. It’s gotten worse since college. One day we’ll have to try and wean you off a bit, huh? Get your tolerance back down?”

“Mm-mm,” Alex hums as he swallows what feels like half the can in one go.

“Because you really don’t need to be drinking as much caffeine as you do, love.”

Alex bumps his head against Eliza’s arm and stuffs another forkful of potato in his mouth. “Yes I do,” he says around the potato.

“Has arguing with Alex ever gotten you anywhere?” John asks.

“Yes, because I always win, because I’m always right,” Eliza says.

Alex chugs the rest of the can and then eats his way methodically through his food, struggling to keep himself alert and upright. The caffeine hits his blood suddenly, and within seconds he’s bright-eyed and enthusiastic, and he hops out of the bed and settles on end of the couch where Eliza and John are eating their own dinners.

“So now that I’m conscious, thanks for dinner,” he says.

“Had enough?” John asks.

“I won’t say no to more,” Alex says. John loads up his fork with potato and holds it to Alexander’s mouth. “I can feed myself,” Alex adds, but John smiles.

“Humour me,” he whispers.

So Alex leans forward, opens his mouth, and accepts the potato. John watches with a hungry look on his face; as he chews, Alex gives him a wicked smile.

“You want more?” John asks breathlessly. Eliza puts her hand on his thigh and he shifts into the touch.

“Yes,” Alex says. He takes the next forkful slower, taking his time biting down, chewing, swallowing. Every motion of his jaw holds John rapt.

“You are adorable,” Eliza murmurs. John starts as though he forgot Eliza was sitting there.

“Adorable how?” he asks, squaring his shoulders defensively.

“John, you should feed me more.” Alex purrs this, leaning forward and tracing a hand up John’s other leg. His fingers squeeze the muscle near where John’s thigh meets his hip.

“I have an idea,” John says.

“Mm?”

John’s palm finds the soft curve of Alexander’s belly. “Let me feed you cake.”

The look in John’s eyes is almost predatory; his voice is husky, something close to a growl, and Alex feels like he’s been laid bare, his innermost workings open to the air for John to peruse at his leisure.

There’s no hesitation when he says, “yes.”

John gets up and takes one of the cakes out of the fridge. It’s a huge chocolate monstrosity, and John cuts a generous slice, getting icing all over his fingers as he plates it. Alex watches the lines of John’s arms moving, the muscles knotting under his freckles, and there’s a sharp pain in his jaw as he starts to salivate. He isn’t sure whether he’s salivating over the cake or John’s arms.

John sits and raises his hand to Alexander’s mouth. Alex sucks the icing off of one finger, holding eye contact with John; the chocolate is rich on his tongue, and when he swallows, John swallows too. He cleans any trace of chocolate off of all of John’s fingers. When he’s done, John grasps Alex’s jaw with his fingertips, and with his other hand he lifts a forkful of cake.

“Open,” John whispers, his voice trembling.

Alex opens his lips and John tips the cake in. He goes to close his mouth but John holds it open, drawing the moment out. Alex knows this game - it’s control. John baits him, waits for him to take initiative, then holds him back and draws it out until he surrenders.

He fights every moment. He always fights. It makes the surrender sweeter.

The pad of John’s thumb traces over his bottom lip and the hand on his jaw releases. He chews slowly, allowing the barest hint of a whine to escape him.

“Good cake?”

“Mmmm,” Alex agrees.

John feeds him the whole slice that way - he puts each bite on Alexander’s tongue and holds his mouth open, just long enough to remind Alex that he’s in control, and then lets him chew. The cake is rich, and Alex feels himself getting full; by the end of the slice it’s a struggle to keep swallowing.

“Almost there,” John breathes.

“I can’t.” Alex feels huge - the cake is heavy in his stomach and he’s been fighting so hard just to get as much as he has down.

“Yes, baby, you can,” John tells him. He makes a strangled noise and Alex looks down to see that Eliza has shoved his shorts down and is stroking his dick slowly, her hands feather-light, barely touching. “Come on, angel, you can do it. Three more bites.”

Alex takes a deep breath and John smiles that smile, the one that makes him feel like he can do anything, and he says, “okay.”

Those are the longest three bites of his life. When there’s one bite left on the fork, John holding it against his lips, Alex feels himself tear up.

“I can’t make it fit,” he says softly.

“Make it fit, baby. Come on, you’re so close.”

Alex looks at Eliza. She smiles at him, dazzling, perfect, and Alex takes a deep breath and opens his mouth.

John puts the cake on his tongue and watches intently as Alex forces himself to swallow.

“You did so good, baby girl,” he whispers.

Immediately Eliza sits forward and snaps, “don’t you  _ dare _ -”

“No,” Alex says, holding eye contact with John. “It’s okay - he used to …”

Alex trails off. John cups his face in both hands.

“You’re going to need to do a  _ lot _ of aftercare, John Laurens,” Eliza says.

“I know.”

“Serious aftercare. And I hope you’re prepared for that.”

“I am,” John says insistently. “Alex, do you want me to use that name?”

“Yes,” Alex answers without a trace of uncertainty.

“You wanna swallow something else for me?”

Alex whimpers. “Yes,” he says again.

John tangles his fingers in Alexander’s hair. “On the floor,” he says, and Alex obediently kneels between John’s feet. Eliza’s hand is still wrapped around John’s cock and Alex kisses her fingers, a wordless whisper of thanks for her protection, before sucking the head into his mouth. He can taste a dribble of pre, salty against the sweet taste lingering on his tongue.

“You stuffed, baby girl?” John breathes, fisting his hand in Alexander’s hair. “You must be so full, huh?”

Alex hums in agreement. His lips touch Eliza’s fingers and he bobs his head, gagging a little when John’s cock hits the back of his throat. That seems to do something for John, because he gently moves Eliza’s hand away, pulls back on Alexander’s hair, and starts fucking his mouth hard. His free hand grasps Alex’s jaw and the thumb slips into his mouth, hooking over his bottom teeth, holding his jaw open at an angle that’s on the edge of painful. Alex savours the pain, savours the knowledge that John is hurting him, and that he’d beg for more, if his mouth wasn’t full.

John’s cock rams against the back of Alex’s throat, and he gags at each thrust. Tears spring into his eyes and spill over and he hears himself making noise, groaning wildly every time John’s cock is pulled out enough for him to breath or make noise.

“You okay, pretty boy?” Eliza asks. Alex chokes out a hum of assent between thrusts.

“You like swallowing my cock?” John hisses. “Got you so full and you’re gonna take more. You think you can even swallow my come? Or is that too much?”

Alex moans desperately. He digs his fingernails into John’s hips, unsure if he’s pushing away or pulling him closer. John is panting hard, cock twitching, and Alex can feel how close he’s getting.

“Come on, Alex, be good,” Eliza urges.

Alex makes a noise halfway between a yelp and a whine, and John jams his cock as far back as he can in Alex’s throat. There’s no air - there’s only the feeling of come dripping hot down his throat, and Alex is gagging and choking and he can’t breathe, and just when he thinks he can’t take it a second longer, John pulls out. A string of come drags out of his throat and over his tongue and Alex coughs, fighting to draw air into his lungs.

“Good boy,” Eliza soothes, and John tugs his hair sharply.

“How was that, angel? Feel nice and full?”

“Yes, sir,” Alex chokes, his voice hoarse.

“How about you do Eliza too? Still hungry?”

“Yes, sir,” Alex says again, and this time there’s desperation in his voice.

Eliza gets up just long enough to take off her shorts and sits back down, right at the edge of the couch. “Come here, pretty boy,” she says, tapping her thigh like she’s calling a dog. Alex obediently shuffles over and buries his face in her. She’s dripping wet and he licks eagerly between her folds, savouring the taste, before plunging his tongue inside her as far as it will go. He can’t get terribly deep, but he laps at her slit, teasing her with the barest hint of penetration, and Eliza knots her hand in his hair right where John’s was and pulls sharply. The pain makes his nerves sing; he moans into her and she answers by moaning back.

“Look at his belly,” John says, his voice full of awe.

“Yeah, he’s gotten soft, huh? Good boy,” Eliza breathes, drawing the praise out into a groan. 

Alex licks his way up to Eliza’s clit. He circles it with his tongue before pressing his lips around it and suckling, fluttering his tongue against it.

“You got so big, didn’t you, baby girl? You filled out and you look so good like that. Look how soft your hips are, look at your squishy thighs - fuck, you’re perfect, Alex. You’re so hot.”

Alex groans and sucks harder on Eliza’s clit, and she rewards him by pushing against his mouth. “Don’t stop,” she tells him. Her voice is breathy and distant and her stomach has started to clench, a sure sign she’s close.

“Remember how little you were in college? You’ve been eating well, haven’t you? I love seeing you hungry and getting all filled up. Come on, Alex, eat Eliza out, make her come. Be a good boy.”

“Good boy, good boy,” Eliza echoes. She tenses and sobs and shudders apart and Alex can feel the contractions rolling through her. He licks her gently as she rides it out and then she’s shoving his face away, too overcome with sensation to let him continue.

Alexander looks up at John with his face shining wet and John leans over to brush his hair out of his face. “Good boy, sweet boy,” John says, voice soft and hands gentle. “Come here, baby, come sit on my lap, let me feel you.”

He stands, but wriggles onto the couch between Eliza and John instead. John raises his eyebrows at the disobedience but the corners of Eliza’s mouth twitch and John relents. One of his hands snakes through the leg of Alexander’s shorts and finds the wet heat of his cunt, teasing his hole.

“You want to get fucked?” John asks. His other hand rests on Alex’s belly, rubbing in slow circles.

“Uh-huh,” Alex breathes. John pushes three fingers into him without warning and Alex bucks, tipping his head back and moaning. Alex feels his breathing hitch as John fucks him hard, no build up, no easing in. It’s rough and frantic and hard, and when John slips his pinkie in and jams that hand in past the knuckles, Alex can’t help but sob out a hoarse, coughing groan. His back arches and he grinds down on John’s hand. “More,” he manages.

John grins, lupine, snarling, and pulls out long enough to fold his thumb against his hand and force his fist into Alexander. The stretch is agonizing and Alex fumbles his hand into his boxers and hammers on his clit. It doesn’t take long - maybe thirty seconds of desperate rubbing, and then he’s coming hard around John’s hand, and the fit is so tight that each contraction is like lightning searing through him. It’s agonizing; it’s perfect.

Eliza kisses Alex’s face, and John pulls out slowly, wiping his hand on Alexander’s shorts. The three of them snuggle close, John and Eliza stroking their hands through Alexander’s hair and over the swell of his belly.

“How do you feel, pretty boy?” Eliza asks. Alex grunts softly and pulls them both closer.

“Was that good?” John asks. “You doing okay?”

“Uh-huh,” Alex says.

“Need anything?” Eliza peppers kisses along his jaw.

Alex draws a deep, shuddering breath. “We leave tomorrow,” he says.

“That’s right, angel,” John tells him.

“Are we gonna keep doing this?”

Eliza and John share a look. “Do you want to?” Eliza asks.

“Well, yeah.”

“I’m enjoying it,” John says.

“We can talk about it,” Eliza tells them. “But right now, I think it’s time to get close and just relax. We’ve been going hard for a couple of days and everyone needs to slow way the heck down. Okay?”

“Okay,” Alex agrees, closing his eyes. He feels his body, loose and pliant, melting into the space between John and Eliza, and before he can stop himself, he hears himself say, “I feel like the filling in a sexy oreo.”

God, how he’d missed John’s laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos replace my need to sleep like a real human being. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's _just physical._

The apartment, cramped and tiny though it is, seems far too large and empty without John’s presence. Alex wanders from room to room - kitchen to living room to bedroom and back - touching objects, picking things up, putting them down in new places, and moping.

Eliza follows him at first, straightening up behind him as he displaces their possessions, but eventually she gives up, settling in the living room and watching him. “You can sit down,” she tells him. “You should relax tonight. We’re both up early tomorrow and we’ve done a lot this weekend.”

“I know, but it feels weird,” he says. He throws himself onto the couch beside her and manages to stay still for about thirty seconds before he starts jiggling his feet.

“We can talk about the weekend if you want.”

“What, about how we went right back into the bullshit that wrecked both of us when he left? Like, what if we’re walking right back into a relationship and he leaves again -”

“I was never dating him,” Eliza says.  _ “You  _ were dating him, and I was along for the ride. It was you I wanted from the beginning and he came with the package. When he left, I was angry, and not a whole lot else. Don’t get me wrong, I liked him as a person, but we never got further than that. But you’re right that it wrecked  _ you. _ So the question is, are you ready to let him back into that position of power?”

“No,” Alex says.

“Then don’t. You’re already letting him in. That’s your choice, pretty boy, not his. You don’t have to take this on.”

“But I like having him around.” This is hard for Alex to admit. He wriggles a little, kicking his feet, and continues, “I missed him a lot.”

“So how do you want to move forward?”

“I want to keep fucking him.”

“Then let’s keep fucking him,” Eliza says, perfectly calm, perfectly rational.

“But it’s  _ just _ physical,” Alex tells her sternly.

She nods, and is that the ghost of a smile on her lips? “Just physical,” she agrees.

 

* * *

 

_ It’s just physical, _ Alex tells himself on Monday when John texts him ‘hey whats up <3’ and his heart starts thundering.

_ It’s just physical, _ he repeats when they make plans for the three of them to have dinner and hang out.

_ It’s just physical, _ he insists internally on Wednesday night when John arrives at their apartment, bearing alcohol and a strawberry Swiss roll.

_ It’s just physical, _ he tries to believe when he throws himself into John’s arms.

“Hey, kitten,” John says, kissing the top of Alex’s head affectionately and pulling Eliza into the hug. “How’s the week been so far?”

“Busy. You’re acting like you haven’t seen each other in years,” Eliza says. She hugs John the way you’d hug a friend, not a fuck buddy, but she stands on her toes to kiss his cheek, which makes Alexander’s chest feel tight. He likes seeing them together - he likes it so much that he forces the thought away and backs out of the hug.

“I mean, we do have a lot of lost time to catch up on,” John says, dropping a kiss on the top of her head as well. “So I know we talked about getting takeout, but what if I just take you both somewhere nice? I can treat, it’s not a big deal.”

“I don’t have the spoons. Restaurants are loud and we’d be there a while,” Alex admits.

“And that way we aren’t taking advantage of you,” Eliza adds.

“It’s not at all taking advantage. Let’s go for a walk, then, and see what we find, and then bring the food back and watch shitty movies together. Does that sounds okay?”

It sounds okay enough that the trio find themselves out on the street, bickering good-naturedly about the quality of nearby food. There’s a bit of a struggle while they try to figure out how to walk together; Alex and Eliza hold hands when they go anywhere, as sickeningly affectionate as the day they started dating, and John can’t seem to figure out how to interact with them. Eventually he slings an arm over Alex’s shoulder, and then Eliza lets go of Alex’s hand and settles under John’s other arm like she was always meant to fit there.

There’s danger in this contentment but Alex ignores it.

“How many pizza places do you even  _ have _ near your apartment?” John complains as they pass the fourth sign aggressively advertizing pizza by the slice. “Did you choose this place because of the surfeit of pizza? Are you expecting a pizza drought? I’m just asking. Look, there’s the  _ fifth _ pizza place, I’m so glad, I was starting to think there was no pizza around here.”

“The last apartment had no pizza nearby at all so when we moved, I chose the exact mathematical centre of the pizza universe. Pizza restaurants radiate out in concentric circles,” Eliza says. “Everyone knows that. So since we’re at the centre, we get the highest concentration. It’s simple science.”

“And now we live in a pizza gangbang,” Alex agrees.

“Boo,” Eliza says.

“Gross,” says John, horrified fascination in his voice. “A food orgy sounds disgusting.”

“Yeah, you only like food orgies when they’re in my stomach -”

“Don’t make my kinks gross, babe.”

“Your kinks are pure and so are you,” Eliza says, and she stands as tall as she can to kiss his cheek.

After half an hour of walking, they give up and agree on pizza. The trio sits around a high table and Alex says through a mouthful of pepperoni, “you know, pizza was an inevitability and we did all that walking for nothing. We could have done this, like, a billion years ago.”

“Is that when protopizza first crawled out of the primordial ooze?” Eliza asks.

John pulls a face. “The word ‘ooze’ should never have anything to do with pizza, ever.”

“Ah, yes, you like your pizza fully evolved.”

“Y’all are weird,” Alex says, and John laughs in his face.

“Says  _ you. _ I bet tonight you’ll be writing weird historical fiction about the evolution of pizza or something.”

“Weren’t you the one who was complaining about kinkshaming earlier? Don’t kinkshame me for my writing or I’ll start talking about food orgies again.”

The couple at the table next to their abruptly gets up and moves further away, and they dissolve into helpless laughter.

“Considering I’m the only responsible one here, I  _ almost  _ want to suggest that we refrain from talking about things that scare people off,” Eliza says, a smile hovering around her lips.

“But?” Alex prompts.

“But it’s way funnier this way,” she finishes. “So who are we inviting to the food orgy?”

“Okay, seriously, if we start talking about this I’m probably gonna get into it -”

“I know,” Eliza says, looking John evenly in the eye. “Who are we inviting?”

“More chocolate cake?” Alex asks, and he shifts a little closer while Eliza crosses one of her legs over John’s under the table.

“The Swiss roll back at our apartment?” Eliza suggests.

John grins, clean, predatory, hungry. “Finish your pizza, you two,” he says. “And then we can go back and turn on a movie.”

Alex opens his mouth obediently and waits. John can’t resist picking up the last of his slice and putting it to Alexander’s lips; when Alex is chewing, his eyes half-lidded and dreamy, John feds a bite to Eliza as well.

“I’ve never had two kittens before,” he says softly; Eliza mewls complacently, soft and pliant, and Alex’s eyes snap open with something like fury.

“John,” he says, a warning, a threat.

Eliza puts her hand on his arm. Alex almost - almost - shakes it off, but he holds himself back. He and John stare at each other, squaring off. John’s face is gentle but there’s the barest hint of teeth as he parts his lips; Alex is defiant, tense, his muscles bunched as he sets his shoulders and opens his chest. There’s something primal about the both of them, something reminiscent of raised hackles and shuddering snarls, and then John raises his lip a little more, the flash of teeth, lupine, the threat of a snap, and Alex averts his eyes and turns away, licking his lips.

Then John, the victor, says, “you’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t ask.”

Alex looks back at him and examines his face closely for any sign of superiority. He seems satisfied, because he answers, “it’s cool. Just check with me before you say something like that.”

Eliza seems to shake herself out of a daze. “Can I ask why -”

“Ownership,” John says. “He’s right. I can’t go back to how we did things before.”

“No, you can’t,” Alex starts.

“I know it’s a big deal -”

“- without asking,” Alex finishes.

Eliza picks up the last of her pizza and stands. “I think it’s time for all three of us to go back home now,” she says, giving Alex that smug grin that gets him wet in seconds.

 

* * *

 

Eliza settles between Alex and John on the couch and taps them both on the knee. “So we’re going to talk about exactly what we’re doing, the kind of relationship this is, and limits,” she says.

“Is your wife aware I’m usually the one in charge?” John asks.

“Just go with it,” Alex says. “Trust me. She has a habit of making everything work.”

“I do. What are your limits, Alex? How far do you want to go?”

Alex looks at John and is suddenly thankful Eliza chose to sit between them; if he didn’t have the distance, if he were too close to John’s curls and his scent and the solid wall of his muscle, Alex knows he wouldn’t be able to set  _ any _ limits. It’s hard, even sitting far as he is, not to open his mouth and say,  _ take anything you want from me, empty me out and fill me up with whatever you want to put in me. _

Instead he says, “I don’t want to belong to you.”

“Okay,” John says, his voice airy.

“But,” Alex says, and he has to take a deep breath before he continues, “I want to be good for you.”

John leans forward but Eliza puts a hand on his chest and holds him back. “Go on,” she says to Alex, encouraging, warm.

“I want - I want to obey,” he says. “I want to be praised when I’m good. I want to be punished when I’m not. So I … I guess I want to be a toy, I just don’t want to be  _ your  _ toy. I’m Eliza’s. If I belong to anyone, it’s her. She has final say.”

“You have final say,” she says to him, a gentle correction.

“You know my limits better than I do,” Alex argues. “How many times have you made me stop doing shit when I thought I was okay to do it?”

She hums noncommittally. “That’s different. I just don’t engage when the consent isn’t there. You still have final say. Your body, your consent.”

Alex relents. “Okay, but you can veto shit with John -”

“I can tell you if I’m uncomfortable, but it’s ultimately your choice.”

“Why are you so sensible?” Alex sighs.

Eliza chuckles. “Someone in our relationship has to be.”

“You definitely lucked out in the wife department,” John says. 

“I’m the best,” Eliza says.

“True,” Alex agrees.

“So what are your limits, John?” Eliza continues. 

John shrugs. He heaves a sigh, crosses his left leg over his right, and fiddles with his prosthetic a little as he says, “I’m just happy to be part of your lives again. Uh, definitely safe sex? Like I don’t want to get either of you pregnant, so we need to be smart about all this. And probably nothing like, permanent, or, you know, lasting. No lasting damage, I mean, if I’m doing punishments. You know how Alex gets.”

Alex grins guiltily.

“That’s all shit I can agree to. As for how this relationship is going - Alex says this is just physical, so as far as I’m concerned, that’s how it’s going to be. It’s just physical,” Eliza says.

“Just physical,” John echoes, his expression inscrutable.

“Good, glad we got all that sorted out. Here’s what’s going to happen,” Eliza says. “We’re to cuddle up and watch a really, really bad movie, and we’ll complain the whole time about how bad it is. Then you’re going to take us both to bed, John, and you’re going to dom the fuck out of us, because I want to see if you live up to the stories Alex has been telling me for the past three days, and we just bought a new box of condoms. Sound good?”

John looks at her with something like awe. “Shit, I thought I was going to be the one in charge.”

“That’s the first rule of life with Eliza,” Alex tells him. “Even when you’re in charge,  _ she’s  _ in charge.”

 

* * *

 

By the end of Three Headed Shark Attack, John is slouching so low he’s almost horizontal, Eliza has her legs draped over his lap, and Alex is laying with his head on John’s stomach.

“That was the worst thing I’ve ever seen,” John says. He pulls Alex’s bun loose and tangles his fingers in the cascade of raven hair.

“An absolute waste of two hours of our lives,” Eliza agrees.

“Nothing will alleviate my suffering,” Alex huffs.

John gently tugs on his hair and runs his free hand up Eliza’s leg. “Really? Nothing?” he breathes, and his voice is a soft snarl. Eliza’s toes curl; Alex turns his face and nips at John’s stomach. John reacts immediately, yanking hard on Alex’s hair, and Eliza watches hungrily as Alex moans.

“I think it’s time for bed,” she says.

Alex bounds ahead of them to the bedroom while Eliza and John take their time. “So, I would say go easy on him, but I know that’s exactly the opposite of what he wants,” Eliza says.

“I know what he wants, but what do  _ you  _ want?” John asks. “What am I doing for you?”

“I don’t like pain. I think - well, I’ve never really let anyone else take charge before. Alex is definitely not a top. I’m kind of just guessing about what I want. But -” She bites her lip and sighs. “Treat me like - a treasure. Something important, something special. Be kind to me.”

John kisses her hand, pausing at the doorway to the tiny bedroom. “I have to be honest, I’m not used to being nice to my toys - but I think I can manage if it’s you.”

They make eye contact and hold for a long moment, and then Alex makes an impatient noise and they both turn to see him nearly naked, sitting on the bed in just his boxers.

“You two are taking  _ way  _ too long,” he says, and he jostles the toybox on his lap.

“He’s not patient,” Eliza says to John.

“Believe me, I know.” John glances in his direction. “Alex, do you need me to be gentle tonight?”

“No,” Alex says, grinning.

“Good. In that case, shut your mouth. I didn’t give you permission to speak to me.”

“I didn’t tell you about -”

“I don’t care,” John says. “Shut your mouth.” He tangles his fingers in Eliza’s hair, tips her head back, and kisses her, and as she melts into him, Alex makes a strangled noise. John’s tongue ghosts over her lower lip and she opens her mouth to him; he takes what he wants, unapologetic, assured, his hands roaming over his body as he kisses her. She surprises herself by closing her eyes and going limp against him. John holds her up, the weight of her body safe in his arms. She can’t help but trust him.

John lifts her, just long enough to deposit her on the bed, and then bends over her, kissing down her neck. “Undress,” he murmurs in her ear. She scrambles to obey; he watches her, the slightest hint of a smile hovering about his lips, and Alex reaches out to touch John.

“No,” he says, and when Alex whines and headbutts his hip, he puts his hand around his neck, softly, a warning. “You forgot all your training, didn’t you? Eliza is way too lenient with you. You need a collar.”

“He has a collar,” Eliza says, slipping out of her underwear.

“Get it,” John tells Alex, giving his cheek a soft warning slap. Alex scrambles to obey, pawing fervently through the toybox on his lap. He produces a black collar, cheaply made, probably made of something similar enough to leather if you don’t look too close. John tuts at the quality but doesn’t say anything as he buckles it around Alexander’s neck and strips his boxers off.

“John -” Alex starts, and John loops his finger through the D ring of the collar and jerks.

“No. Be respectful.”

“Sir,” Alex tries again. Eliza watches with delight.

“Yes?”

“You’ve been kissing her, and I -”

“You want something, don’t you?” John’s voice has lowered, and there’s danger in the husky growl. “Are you going to ask me for something?”

“Please -”

“One last chance, Alex.”

Alex makes a tiny noise and Eliza’s hips move. John releases the collar and turns his attention back to her, running his hands over her body, teasing her nipples with his thumbs. She opens her mouth and sighs, and Alex can’t seem to hold back anymore - he whines, “please, sir, I can’t -”

“On your back,” John says, not bothering to look at him. Alex pauses for a moment and John adds, “I expect you to comply the moment I give you an order.”

Alex lays on his back and John kisses Eliza one more time before turning his attention to Alex. He takes in the straps installed on the bed frame, and digs in the toybox for a moment, just long enough to find the cuffs that connect. He restrains Alex’s wrists in easy, practiced movements, strapping them tight to the frame, and then clips his ankles together.

“You’re going to keep your legs open and your ankles as close to your ass as you can get them,” John says. “If you fail to hold the position I’ll restrain your knees too, and I’ll make sure the stretch is painful. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Alex breathes.

“Then show me.”

Alex draws his ankles up and lets his legs fall open, displaying his dripping cunt. He’s wet enough that the bedsheets beneath him are damp; Eliza finds it hard to resist reaching out and touching him, but she holds back, watching John.

He doesn’t disappoint. He pulls a U-shaped vibrator out of the toybox and fiddles with it. “Explain this one to me,” he tells Eliza.

“Part goes inside, and the other end rests on the clit,” Eliza tells him. “You can make both ends vibrate or just one.”

“And it just stays?”

“It just stays,” she agrees.

John plays with the buttons until both ends are vibrating full blast, and then turns and shoves it into Alex, who shouts and grinds his hips.

“This is staying here, and you’re not allowed to come unless I say so. I’m going to get to know your wife a little more intimately,” John says.

“Yes sir,” Alex breathes, squirming against the vibration. It’s too intense; he feels tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, but he can’t move to adjust it or pull it off his clit. He can feel his breathing going ragged as he struggles to adjust to the sensation.

John kisses Eliza hard, nipping at her lip, slipping his tongue into her mouth, and then makes his way down her body. He flicks each nipple with his tongue, just long enough to tease; when she breathes hard and moves against him, he kisses steadily down her body, sucks a bruise into the tender skin just under her navel, and then buries his face in her vulva, his tongue dipping inside her before tracing a meandering trail up to her clit. She bucks against him, knotting her hands in the cascade of curls obscuring his face, and moans low in her throat. Alex makes a cracked noise and bucks in time with her, moving in vain against the vibrator.

“You’re soaked,” John says, slipping two fingers into her and tilting them upwards until he finds the spot that makes Eliza cry out. Growling softly, he focuses his attention back on her clit; he flicks it with the tip of his tongue until all her muscles are tense, quivering with the strain, and then closes his lips on it and sucks. Before long she’s grinding against his face and begging, in half-words and broken noises, for orgasm, and just when she’s right at the edge, just when her begging is the most desperate, he stops.

“Please,” she gasps, locking eyes with him as he raises his head, his lips swollen, his chin slick.

“No,” he tells her, with a grin just wide enough to show off the points of his teeth. He stands and strips his t-shirt off, uses it to wipe the worst of the mess from his chin, and then unbuckles his belt. His cock is a hard line, pressing desperately against the fly of his pants; he unzips slowly and steps out of his pants and his shorts, and then his cock, painfully hard, the tip leaking obscenely, bobs up, and Alex cries out.

John’s head whips around and he fixes Alex in his gaze. Alex is straining against the cuffs, his body shaking, curling into himself. “I couldn’t help it,” he says, sobbing through the waves of his climax. 

“Pitiful,” John tells him. “And that’s such a shame, because I was going to reward you for being good.”

Eliza presses a hand against her vulva, not daring to slip a finger between her labia to stroke her clit. John hasn’t given her any orders - it’s not explicitly forbidden for her to touch herself - but she knows, without having to ask, that he wants to control her orgasm too. Still, she can’t help but put pressure on her clit, even indirectly. John glances at her, examining the position of her hand, and then gives her the barest hint of a smile before turning his attention back to Alex.

(She is surprised to discover just what that approval does to her, and more surprised to discover that the approval is made all the sweeter by the knowledge that Alex is going to be thoroughly punished. She wonders if she can get him in more trouble, if she can see him punished more severely, and the thought sends a shock of warmth straight to her clit.)

“What were you going to do?” Alex asks. There’s the barest hint of apprehension in his voice.

“Manners.” John reaches down and delivers a stinging slap to Alex’s thigh. “I guess you’ll never find out, will you? Eliza, what should I do to teach him a lesson?”

She doesn’t hesitate for a second. “Stuff him,” she says, and when Alex’s face lights up, she adds viciously, “and hit him.”

“How much do you think he deserves? Should I leave bruises?” John asks, and Eliza nods, eyes wide with anticipation. He releases Alexander’s wrists and smacks him on the thigh again, adding, “roll over, baby girl.”

Alex rolls obediently, and John roots around in the toybox for a moment, surfacing with a rather severe-looking black plug. He rubs the rounded tip of it against Alex’s cunt. “Eliza, be a dear and put a condom on me,” he says absently, and he pushes the tip of the plug into Alex, which jams the vibrator, still running, against his g-spot. Alex makes a ragged groaning noise, and John, feigning concern, asks, “oh, dear, is that too much for you, love?”

“Uh-huh,” Alex sobs.

“Wow, that really sucks. I guess you should have listened to me, hm?” John shoves the plug into place and then turns his attention back to Eliza, who is in the middle of tearing open a condom. “I want to fuck you,” he tells her; she rolls the condom onto him, taking the time to do it properly despite the aching urge to get it done and sink onto that cock.

“Please fuck me, sir,” she says, and Alex sobs, holding his position.

“Please, can I -”

“Look at her,” John says, cutting him off. Alex looks over his shoulder at Eliza, at the way she slowly strokes John’s cock.

“I need to see you fuck her.” Alex’s voice is so soft it’s almost inaudible.

Eliza looks at him, huge eyes and quivering lips, and holds the gaze until it’s too intense to bear any longer. “You,” she tells him.

“You,” he agrees, and it means everything:  _ I love you, I trust you, I need you, you are the most important person in my life. _

John, in a curious display of subservience, waits until Eliza is ready. She meets his eyes and says, “now, sir, please,” and it’s only then that he kneels between her legs, teases her open, and slides into her.

And oh, God, she hadn’t missed cock until this moment. Alex is gorgeous, Alex is perfect, but there’s something to be said about being filled in this way, filled by something that isn’t a hand or a silicone facsimile, and Alex can’t give her this. She looks down at the point where her body meets John’s and watches him slip inside, and her heart suddenly feels far too large, hammering at her ribcage.

For a desperate, breathless moment, all she can think is,  _ oh, fuck. _

Then John is fucking her in earnest, his teeth tugging gently at her earlobe and that perfect cock thrusting in and out of her, and she opens her mouth and surprises herself with the desperate moan that bursts from her lips. Alex moans too, echoing her; they breathe in time, and it’s like John is filling both of them, like John is claiming both of them, and Eliza feels something in her cling to the man fucking her, and she knows it isn’t going to let go.

She peppers his face with kisses, her nails leaving long lines down his back, and she slips one hand between them and breathes, “sir, please, can I,” and John nods and she’s rubbing her clit in desperate circles and sobbing against his shoulder. He doesn’t fuck in the way her other college flings did - he doesn’t just jerk woodenly in and out like she’s just a sleeve for his cock. He rolls his hips, seeking the angles that make her gasp and shudder.

She is aware, dimly, that John has pulled the vibrator out of Alex. A long moment passes and then Alex is laying next to her, and John kisses them both, Eliza first, Alex second, and then Eliza and Alex are kissing each other and John is fucking her and his arm is shaking and she knows, without having to look, that he’s touching Alex. A resounding slap echoes through the room, loud enough to make her hands sting with sympathy; John has hit Alex on the thigh, and he does it again and again, until Alex is crying into their kiss.

“Please sir,” she groans, hardly breaking away from Alex’s lips to say it, and he echoes the words half a dozen times. “Please, let me come,” and then Alex is echoing that too, over and over.

“Yes,” John says, as his hand finds Alex’s clit and rubs it hard.

Eliza comes first. Her whole body tenses and her spine curls and she shouts into John’s shoulder, clenching; she is dimly aware of him pumping half a dozen times and then biting off a groan before it starts, and she wishes she could feel him coming in her. Alex is the last to come, all clinging hands and broken sobbing, and the three of them collapse together, John between them, then beneath them, solid, dependable.

“Fuck, fuck,” Alex grunts.

“I know,” Eliza gasps, and she can’t resist covering his face in kisses. “I know, I know -”

“I love you,” John whispers, and all three of them tense.

“Oh,” Alex says.

Eliza breathes out slowly. “Oh,” she agrees.

John inhales and holds it until he can’t bear it anymore, and then lets it all out in a hoarse sigh. “Is there any chance,” he asks, “that neither of you heard that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen. i'm sorry i've been so slow updating. things are wild.
> 
> anyway take this.
> 
> comments and kudos give me the superhuman ability to not abandon in progress fics. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron grins. “I didn’t know you three were back together.”
> 
> “Yeah,” John says, at the same time that Alex says, “we aren’t,” and Eliza protests, “no, no -"

Alex pouts all the way through aftercare. He pouts while John lays him and Eliza down and pets their backs in long, soothing strokes; he pouts while John rubs his wrists where the cuffs pulled, checking for bruises; he pouts while John tugs his hair out of the loose ponytail and brushes it until it shines.

Eliza, curled contentedly on the bed, watches him with big eyes. She doesn’t say anything, just keeps an eye on him, although she’s clearly on the edge of sleep. 

“So,” John says, when the silence becomes unbearable. “Uh, am I, you know, taking off so you two can sleep? Or -”

“Stay,” Eliza mumbles, and Alex makes an indignant noise.

“Is that really a good idea?”

John looks at him, his face perfectly blank and unreadable, although his eyes are stormy. “If you don’t want me to stay the night, Alex, I’ll go.”

“Alex,” Eliza says. “What’s the worst that will happen?”

“He’ll say it again,” Alex says. He sinks back into his pout, although he can’t help shivering when John buries his fingers in the shining waves of Alexander’s hair and rubs his scalp.

“I won’t,” John promises. “I’m sorry.”

“Okay. Okay,” Alex says, “okay. I can manage if you just - don’t do that again. This isn’t exactly easy -” He bites off the words there and, try as they might, Eliza and John can’t coax him to say the rest.

But when the three of them are curled up together, in the dark, Alex in the middle, he breathes the rest of the sentence into the stillness.

“ - because I was ready for you to die over there, and you didn’t. This should have died too, and it didn’t. So what am I supposed to think? How do I pretend like all this is normal, when the shit I missed the most is back from the dead?”

John takes a breath, but Alex cuts him off before he can speak.

“You let it die, John. Let it stay dead.”

For once, John doesn’t have any kind of response.

 

* * *

 

And if Alex wakes John up in the night, if he whispers an apology for his harsh words, if he breathes “I love you, John, I never stopped loving you,” if they cling together in the darkness, if they fuck quietly, afraid to wake Eliza up, afraid that they’re stealing time, afraid that this tiny fragile connection will slip away if they don’t take the opportunity - 

Well, who needs to know?

 

* * *

 

Alex sulks. It’s what he does best. He sulks when John gets up early and goes home, and for the rest of the day, Eliza can’t seem to drag him from his funk. By the time she goes to work, Alex is set deep in his mood, feet up on the back of the couch, head near the floor, grumbling to himself.

He’s grumpy enough that Eliza’s legendary patience seems set to dry up towards the end of the day. “Jesus, Alex, you can stop pouting now. There are worse things he could have done,” she says, dropping her bag as she lets herself in. “You haven’t moved at all while I was at work, have you?”

“No,” Alex says from the couch, where he’s hunched over his laptop, surrounded by empty Monster cans. “Except for long walks to the fridge.”

Eliza eyes the cooler sitting beside him on the floor.

“Alright,” Alex admits, “one long walk to the fridge. But I lifted the cooler and that was heavy, so that also counts as exercise.”

“How many of these have you had?” she asks.

“Five,” Alex says.

She raises her eyebrows. Alex takes one final swig from the can in his hand and amends, “okay, now six.”

“Your heart is going to explode. Let’s go for a walk.”

“That’s a good idea. You know, I feel pretty energetic,” Alex tells her.

Eliza tries not to smile, but her lips curl up and before she realizes it she’s laughing. “I wonder why.”

Eliza doesn’t even bother to change out of her work clothes. She dresses casually enough that her slob of a husband doesn’t look too out of place with his untrimmed beard and his messy ponytail. They wander together, Alex chattering away about all the internet arguments he’s started over the past day, Eliza holding onto his hand and watching carefully for a break in the facade he’s thrown up.

It doesn’t take very long. “Anyway, I started some discourse about the nature of - okay, listen, that can wait. Eliza, I slept with John.”

Eliza pretends to be surprised. “Shit, you mean, when I was there? In the room? Also sleeping with John?”

“No,” Alex says. “I mean, technically yes, in that you were asleep in the room and that John was there, but no. John and I fucked while you were asleep. And I didn’t ask first, because I’m a doorknob -”

“You are,” Eliza agrees, “a complete fucking walnut. So, let’s talk about that. Are you cool with me sleeping with him if you’re not there?”

“Sure,” Alex answers. “As long as I’m still your priority, do whatever you want with your body.”

“And I’m fine with you sleeping with him if I’m not there. I’m just glad you waited to be impulsive until after I bought condoms.”

Alex is silent, for once.

“Alex,” Eliza says, “you used a condom, right? Tell me you used a condom.”

Alex clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “So, technically, it’s almost impossible for me to get pregnant because I’m on T -”

“No, no it  _ isn’t, _ it’s rare but it’s not impossible -”

“Yes, that’s why I said  _ almost _ -”

“Okay, well, you’re doing that thing where you get finicky about wording to try and prove a point and whatever ridiculous point you’re trying to prove is less important than the fact that you might get pregnant! This is why we need to get your hysto done, so you  _ don’t do this shit  _ and I can have some room to breathe! What will we do if you get pregnant, Alex?” Eliza is shaking a little. “We can barely afford our apartment as it is, do you think we could afford a  _ child? _ I can’t borrow any more money from my dad, Angie is off in London so I can’t lean on her -”

“Are you saying John wouldn’t pay child support?” Alex says.

“See, now you’re just arguing with me for the sake of arguing. Yes, of course he would, he’s a good man, but that’s setting aside the fact that I do not want a baby right now, Alex. You cannot pull shit like this and expect me to be okay with it!”

“Okay,” he says. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t fix this,” Eliza says. She takes a deep breath and rubs her face. “Ohhhh my Gooood, Alex, please,  _ please  _ think sometimes. Please. What are we going to do if you do get pregnant?”

“Terminate,” Alex says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

“Oh! Okay, that’s neat, we  _ definitely  _ have the money laying around to do that -”

“We could get John to pay.”

“Sure, yes, that’ll go great. ‘Hey, John, sorry, you got my husband pregnant when you and he decided to  _ fuck without a condom _ and now we might be carrying your child, but it’s fine, let’s just abort it. Also we can’t afford to do that so can you pay for it?’ Yeah, that’ll go over really well -”

“Hey, look, I know you’re pissed but can you maybe tone it down about the pregnancy and shit, we’re in public, people are staring and I don’t want -” Alex stops talking, fidgeting with the hem of his t-shirt.

Eliza slows her breathing and calms herself. “Yes, okay, I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m calm, I’m toning it down. Just - look, Alex, we need to get some pregnancy tests and we need to keep on top of this.”

“Okay. Also, one more thing -”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“- Aaron is coming up to the city for a couple of weeks and he wants to know if you’re up for hanging out.”

Eliza rubs her temples. “Thank God it’s not something like, ‘oh by the way I’m also out of testosterone and I need you to pay for the next vial because I spent all my money on energy drinks’ -”

Alex starts and then grins sheepishly, and Eliza heaves a weary sigh.

 

* * *

 

On Friday afternoon, Alex hauls Eliza and John to the airport to welcome Aaron. The weather is unbearably hot and the three of them are sweating in shorts and the skimpiest t-shirts they can manage; Alex wears the most obnoxious open-sleeve tank he owns, pretending not to mind that his binder is showing, and John complains loudly in the cab that he has to wear a shirt at all. “I didn’t die for my country so that I had to wear a shirt.”

“You didn’t die,” Alex says.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said. I didn’t die for my country. And then also I added, so that I had to wear a shirt. Anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s, like, in the Constitution that shirts are absolutely not required, ever, especially when it’s the middle of summer and hotter than Satan’s asshole.”

“You are not allowed to take that off,” Eliza says as John tugs at the front of his tee.

“Okay,” John says, “but consider this: if I was shirtless, you’d be able to see my nips.”

“We’ve slept with you like a billion times in the past week. We see your nips, like, all the time,” Alex says.

“Yes, and you’re the first to complain about that, aren’t you, Alex?”

“Boys, be nice,” Eliza tells them. “Or you’re both grounded.”

“You can’t ground me when my ex roommate is coming to visit!” Alex protests. “How am I supposed to show him the best places in the city for me to call him a nerd?”

“He used to live here too,” John points out.

Alex pouts. “And then he left, which makes him a traitor, which means I have to absolutely destroy his nerdy ass.”

“If  _ anyone’s  _ ass is getting destroyed, it’s yours, Alex. That’s why you keep me around.”

“May I remind you that our cab driver is a human being who can totally hear us?” Eliza says.

“I’m trying to block you all out,” the driver tosses back over his shoulder.

Alex giggles with embarrassment, and John stretches out, taking up far too much space and putting his arms around Alex and Eliza’s shoulders. “Alright, I’ll behave,” he says. “But when we get home I fully intend to destroy -”  
“We’re here,” their driver says, “please get out of my car.”

John pays the fare and buys a round of absolutely decadent icy, chocolaty coffee messes, and Alex attempts - in vain - to name him Pockets the Second. “I can’t take that name, Aaron is going to be here in - what, half an hour?” John says.

“He left and the name stayed here, so it needs someone to shoulder it bravely -”

“Boys, if you can stop bickering for even a single second, one of your phones is ringing,” Eliza says.

Alex digs in his pockets furiously and manages to fumble his phone out just in time to miss Aaron’s call. “Okay, so that probably means he’s here early -”

John ushers them in the vague direction of arrivals. Alex has a bad habit of getting distracted in crowds - there are far too many people to argue with, it’s like releasing a hutch full of rabbits right under a greyhound’s nose - but Eliza takes his hand firmly and tells him, “this is your leash, and you’d better behave yourself or you lose the privilege to even get an arm’s length away from me,” and Alex wriggles with the delightful knowledge that he’s been bad and behaves himself.

Aaron sees John first, and his eyes pan down his body, catch on the prosthetic, and dart away quickly. John can’t help but notice. “I found Pockets,” he says, “and he’s already pissed me off.”

“Be nice,” Eliza says, and Alex tugs at her arm.

“Come  _ on, _ we haven’t seen him in  _ forever  _ -”

“Hey!” Aaron calls, wrestling two suitcases through the crowds toward them. He hesitates for a fraction of a second, and then hugs Alex tight. “Shit, you have a beard now, when did that happen? Eliza, marriage suits you, you look amazing -”

“Nothing compared to you,” she says, and she’s being honest - Aaron’s shoulders have filled out and he looks fantastic. He’s not as hard as John, there’s softness in his cheeks and a gentle curve in his hips, but he’s solid, he holds himself with pride, and - most incredible of all - the crease in his trousers is sharp and his shirt is entirely unwrinkled, and he’s only just gotten off the plane.

“My life is a shambles, plane travel destroys me, but my wife keeps me on top of my game,” Aaron says. “Speaking of, she’s on her way. Just had to stop for a moment - oh, there she is!”

And then there’s a tall figure in high waisted shorts and a crop top making her way through the crowd, cradling something against her chest. When she’s close enough to speak, she says, “holy shit, is that John?”

“Lafayette?” John blinks with surprise. “When did you get rid of the beard? I didn’t even recognize you!”  
“I know, isn’t it ridiculous? The beard grows back so fast, though, so you’ll recognize me in a couple days. I thought you were still overseas!” Laf kisses Aaron on the forehead, shifting the bundle in her arms.

“I was, but I came back about a year ago. I was over there long enough to earn a medal and my oak leaf, and then I accidentally left my foot under a tank and decided, well, enough is enough.”

“You got your oak leaf?” Alex asks, startled. “How the hell did  _ you  _ get promoted that high?”

“Is that the way you speak to an officer?” John says.

“You can save your weird flirting for later,” Eliza reminds them.

Aaron grins. “I didn’t know you three were back together.”

“Yeah,” John says, at the same time that Alex says, “we aren’t,” and Eliza protests, “no, no -”

“Sorry,” Aaron says into the uncomfortable pause, and Laf cuts him off.

“Hey, that was awkward, subject change! We stole a kid. Wanna see?”

John makes a delighted noise and Aaron says weakly, “princess, okay, I know that’s hilarious, but we didn’t  _ steal _ her.”

“We kinda stole her, but only a little,” Lafayette insists, shifting the bundle in her arms to show off a very solemn-looking and incredibly asleep baby. “I mean, it’s not like there’s much to steal. She’s still pretty tiny. I was told that it’s normal for them to be this small when they’re a year old, but I’m not totally convinced.”

“May I?” John asks, breathless, enchanted. Lafayette deposits the baby in his arms and John’s eyes suddenly seem a lot more damp than usual. Aaron and Laf seem content to let John carry her as the five of them leave the terminal and flag down a cab outside; the baby stirs a little and makes tiny noises, but John shushes and rocks her, and she settles back into sleep while they pile into the car.

“She’s probably the most relaxed baby ever, which is great,” Laf says from the front seat. “Because, and I promise you this is a true fact, I googled it - did you know that you can’t mute babies? They just don’t come with that option installed.”

“I think it’s a third-party app, which voids your baby warranty,” Aaron agrees.

“What’s her name?” John asks. He examines her tiny hands, the tight curls of her hair, her chubby cheeks, like he’s afraid she’ll disappear if he looks away.

“Theodosia,” Aaron says. “Theo. We named her after her mama.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy day before the anniversary of the day you died john laurens, enjoy this fanfic where u have a lot of sex
> 
> comments and kudos give me the will to live. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baby Theo is adorable; Alex and Eliza have a problem that only John can fix.

Aaron and Laf’s hotel room is both bigger and far more luxurious than Alex and Eliza’s apartment. It’s a beautiful suite with a balcony and Alex spreads out, basking in the feeling of having  _ room _ to walk around.

“The upholstery looks a bit tired,” Aaron says, and Alexander’s stomach suddenly sinks.

“Pretty worn,” Lafayette agrees.

Alex tries very hard to remind himself that Aaron and Lafayette have had far more sophisticated tastes than his their entire lives - they haven’t had the past that Alex has.

He suddenly remembers that John, too, comes from wealth - and so does Eliza - and he struggles against the feelings of anger and resentment welling in him.

Theo has woken up and she’s cranky. She makes soft noises of distress, brandishing her tiny clenched fists. “Ah-maaaaa,” she says, drawing it out into a hiccupy sob.

“Her mama flew out today to visit Angie,” Aaron explains, taking the baby from John, who looks absolutely devastated to surrender her. “Hey, baby! Mama’s gone on a plane! Who was on a plane today? Was it you?” He kisses Theo’s tummy and makes nomming noises. “You got a chubby tummy? Hey, Theo? I’m gonna eat up your chubby tummy!”

Theo still looks upset, but she laughs anyway, her tiny eyebrows knit with confusion. She pats her hands against Aaron’s face, conversing very seriously in nonsense syllables, and Aaron punctuates the pauses between her sounds with solemn murmurs of “I see” and “you don’t say so?”

“If Teddy is mama and - I’m assuming Aaron is daddy - what are you?” Eliza asks Laf.

“Pere,” Laf says. “French for father, but sounds like the first half of parent. She’s a clever kid, she’ll figure it out fine - although she did get scared the first time I shaved off my beard and Aaron had to give me smooches all over my face to convince her it was safe.”

“Dad kisses solve everything,” Aaron says. “Don’t they, Theo?”

Theo babbles her agreement. Mollified, she allows herself to be handed back to John, which is cute until she reveals her ulterior motive: she’s fascinated by his curls, and the moment he allows her to touch them, she pulls them hard and shrieks with laughter.

“Now I know how it feels when I do this to you, Alex,” John grits between his teeth. “She’s ffff- freaking strong, wow -”

“You can swear, we do it all the fucking time, it’s not like she’s gonna be saying full sentences anytime soon,” Aaron says.

“And if she does pick up the fuck word, I can blame it on Aaron,” Laf adds.

Eliza smiles as she gently untangles John’s hair from Theo’s hands. “I’m starting to wonder how you two have managed to have a child for an entire year without any kind of huge disaster,” she says, and Theo kicks her feet and laughs.

 

* * *

 

John seems dreamy in the cab on the way to Alex and Eliza’s apartment. He sits between the two of them, holding both their hands and frowning at his knees.

“Hey, John,” Eliza says, squeezing his hand, “what’s up?”

John starts. “Oh, just thinking about Theo,” he says.

“What about her?” Alex asks.

“Just - you know, how it would feel to have one.”

“Let’s steal her,” Alex suggests.

“Apparently that’s how Laf got her in the first place, so that sounds like a viable option,” John agrees.

Eliza grimaces. “Alternatively -” she adds, in her no-nonsense voice.

“Oh shit,” Alex whispers - he knows what’s coming.

“- you two could just  _ wait and see if Alex is pregnant, _ because you made  _ terrible  _ decisions -”

“You told her?” John hisses.

“She’s my wife! I had to!”

“- and despite having condoms in the room we were all sleeping in you chose to have unprotected sex! So what will we do if my husband gets pregnant, John?”

The cab driver looks back for a moment and then turns his attention back to the road; Alex shrinks into himself and rocks a little, making a soft, uncomfortable humming noise deep in his throat.

John puts an arm around him and extracts his other hand from Eliza’s in order to give her a gentle warning tap on the knee. “He’s super uncomfortable,” he says quietly. “Can we wait to tell him off until we get home?”

Eliza draws a deep breath in and says, “yes, okay. Shit, I keep doing this - Alex, hey, pretty boy, I’m sorry. You okay?”

Alex shrugs but doesn’t answer.

“You doing your breathing?”

He shrugs again. John kisses his head roughly and he manages to draw a deep breath in.

“I’m sorry I keep fucking that up. No more, okay? I promise.”

“Okay,” Alex says. Uncomfortable silence draws out between the three of them, and Alex dissociates a little, drifting and staring out the window. He’s always caught off guard by the weird dichotomy between his private life and public - at home he’s fine to talk openly about his vagina or complain about his tits or be called baby girl, but out in public he lives in fear of anyone even so much as suspecting he’s trans. He doesn’t want weakness, doesn’t want vulnerability; he was determined to leave all that behind when he left foster care, and when it rears its head again it makes him feel trapped and panicky.

He wants to be impenetrable - he wants to be a fortress - and the world keeps showing him that he isn’t allowed, and it’s so fucking  _ exhausting. _

When the cab stops, he’s the first one out. He stands on the sidewalk, hands jammed in his pockets, shoulders hunched, while John and Eliza squabble over who’s going to pay - John takes advantage of his longer arms by holding her back and handing the driver a bill before she can take out her wallet - and then follows them silently into their building.

He looks at the tiny, cramped apartment, at the too-low ceilings and the narrow hall and the shabby furniture, and he feels sick with the knowledge that he can’t give Eliza that bright, sunny suite with a balcony and a view.

“I took a pregnancy test,” he says, locking the door. “Negative.”

“Okay, well, keep checking, because you never know -” Eliza starts.

“It’s not a big deal. It’s fine. I checked.”

“Just - please humour me, okay? Please keep checking.”

“We don’t have the money,” he snaps. “We can’t afford to keep buying pregnancy tests when I  _ know _ they’ll be negative.”

“Your payday is coming up,” Eliza says, “you can pick up another couple tests on the way home -”

“No, I can’t, ‘cause I just got fired.”

There’s silence; John looks between them, at the expressions on their faces, and wisely chooses not to say anything.

“I didn’t want to tell you that way.” Alex sighs and closes his eyes. “I’m going to go take a nap.”

Eliza and John stand for a moment, staring at the door he slams behind him. There’s a moment of stillness that neither of them dare to disturb; and then Eliza sighs and throws herself on the couch, and John follows her.

“Well, there’s another worry,” she says.

John is a solid wall beside her. He gathers her against him and kisses her head, and she melts, suddenly aware of just how much tension she carries and how hard she works to keep their lives together. “You two can make it work,” he says. “You always manage. He’s like a bulldog, and you’re - well, you’re  _ you. _ You’ll be fine.”

“What if we aren’t fine?” she asks. 

John takes a moment to answer. “Well,” he says, “I guess that’s what I’m here for.”

 

* * *

 

Alex manages to sulk until the time Eliza comes to bed. She lets herself into their bedroom and sits beside him on the bed, where he sits swearing at Pokemon Shuffle and pouting.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” he echoes warily.

“So let’s talk about this.” She smooths his hair away from his face; he taps away furiously at his phone, a surefire sign he’s listening intently. “If you’re not working, we need to look at our budget.”

“I checked. We can make rent for another couple months on our savings and my last cheque, and then -”

“And then we’re fucked?”

Alex meets her eyes for a moment, and then goes back to his game. “Yeah, pretty much.”

Eliza sighs. “So we need to look at other options. Maybe a smaller place. Is there anyone who can help us through until you start working again?”

“Angie?”

“No, I can’t ask her again - and she’s in London, and I know rent is super expensive over there. And my dad is off the table too. I’m still paying him back from last time. Aaron? Lafayette?”

“They have a baby,” Alex says. “I know kids are expensive. And Herc can’t afford it, he just started his own business …”

“So that leaves -”

“No,” Alex, protests, too late -

“- John.”

They stare at each other; Alex is angry, Eliza is defiant.

“It won’t hurt to ask him,” Eliza says finally.

“It will,” Alex insists. “I don’t want to be dependent on him - look, when I dropped out of school I thought I’d be able to depend on him, and I couldn’t. He left, he just told me he couldn’t support me and he left, and I’m -”

“Scared?” Eliza asks, her voice gentle.

“Scared,” Alex echoes. He looks lost; there’s something wounded in his eyes and his voice quavers just a little.

“We don’t have any other options,” Eliza tells him.

Alex takes a moment to breathe. “I know,” he says finally.

 

* * *

 

“Move in with me,” John says.

Alex and Eliza stiffen, disbelieving. “Sorry, can you say that again?” Alex says finally.

“Just move in with me. My place is more than big enough - don’t waste your time paying rent here, put your shit in storage if you have to, bring whatever will fit in my apartment. I have an office, but I barely use it - you can put your bed in there and I’ll move my desk if it’s in your way.” John grins. “I’m not going to pretend I don’t want you close by. I kind of hate spending nights here, and you two will  _ love _ my place.”

Alex bristles at the insult to the apartment, but he really can’t blame John - it’s tiny and smells weird and he’s pretty sure there’s the beginning of a silverfish infestation. He takes a breath, but before he can reply, Eliza says, “okay. Thank you, John.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, and there’s no smugness, no air of rescue; he says it like he’s the one thanking them.

They pack up their apartment in a flurry and give their landlady notice. There’s so little organization in the boxes - they have dishware crammed in with Alexander’s stuffed animals, framed photos packed between layers of sweaters. Alex rips the music from their CDs and tosses them in a box to go to Goodwill. They don’t need the clutter.

They get rid of as much furniture as they can - their dining table is a mess, so it goes on Craigslist. Their couch is worn and saggy, the matching armchair has never been sat in - they list those as well, put whatever free junk they can reasonably carry out on the sidewalk. Most of it goes quickly; the stuff that doesn’t gets smashed to pieces and they let it sit, look the other way.

John picks up boxes and furniture every time he comes over. They move like this, slowly, until so much of their stuff is gone that the place is no longer livable; and then they pack the rest of their clothes and toiletries, disassemble the bed frame, strap the mattress to the roof of John’s SUV, and leave for good. 

Alex feels a pang as they leave - he hated that apartment, yes, but it was home for years. It’s always hard to leave home. He’s done it dozens of times; being ferried between foster parents and group homes becomes boring, after a while - but there’s always a tug, always pain, saying goodbye to home, however small and poor it may be.

On the way, they stop to pick up a couple more pregnancy tests; Alex insists it’s just to pacify Eliza, but he can’t squash the anxiety he feels at the thought that he may see a little plus sign on one of them.

They manage to wrestle the last of their boxes and their bed into John’s apartment, and then it’s just Alex and Eliza in the office-turned-bedroom, fitting their bed frame together and debating how many posters to put on the walls.

“All of them,” Alex says.

“No,” Eliza insists, and then she pretends she doesn’t notice him putting them all up anyway.

The room is bigger than the one they were in before, although that isn’t saying much; there’s room for their bed and John’s desk - which Alex immediately announces he’s going to steal - and nothing else, but that’s alright.

It’s the lack of John that they’re feeling.

They look at each other, at their bed, and then Alex picks up his pillow.

“I vote we sleep with John tonight,” he says.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Eliza says.

They don’t glance back as they shut the door behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos cure the cold im trying to fight off. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	9. Chapter 9

Their first night together is soft.

The three of them fold together, yielding and gentle; John kisses them both, lingers in each kiss, murmurs promises of safety and affection against skin - and whose skin, he doesn’t know; he’s sinking into the space between them, kissing the lines of two suddenly-familiar bodies, bodies he wants to hold and never let go of.

Eliza tangles her fingers in his hair, in Alex’s hair, gasps as John slips inside her. She aches for this - it’s only been a few days since the last time he was inside her, but a few days is far too long to go without that cock inside her.

She gives up, relaxes against him; he doesn’t fuck her, he  _ loves _ her, and she overflows with love for him, love she can’t hold back anymore. She murmurs it, murmurs “I love you I love you I love you,” and both Alex and John murmur it back, soft echoes in the dark - her boys curl around her, inside her, and she pulls them hard against her like she’s afraid they’ll disappear.

They lie together after, tangled so tight she wonders if they’ll ever break apart. Alex rests his head on her chest, his ear against her thudding heart; John is wrapped around her, his left leg hooked over her hip. She can feel the smooth rounded end of his leg moving against her thigh - slow, repetitive movements, the ticking of a metronome, a soft marker of the passage of time.

They’re all exhausted, but no one seems to be able to fall asleep. They shift until John is in the middle, and Alex and Eliza curl against him; but that isn’t right either - and then Alex squirms into the middle, snuggles into the space between Eliza and John, and suddenly everything seems perfect.

John rubs Alex’s back in long, soothing strokes, and Eliza curls into the softness of his body, savouring his warmth. They drift together; John breathes heavily, not quite snoring.

Alex starts laughing suddenly, and it jars John and Eliza fully awake.

“What?” John manages, though it sounds like his tongue is firmly asleep.

“I just realized,” Alex chokes out. “Aaron and Laf hyphenated their name, right? They’re the Burr-Jeffersons. Aaron is Aaron Burr-Jefferson.”

“And?” Eliza says.

“His initials are ABJ. A bj. He’s a  _ blowjob. _ Aaron confirmed for blowjob.”

He curls up, dissolving in helpless laughter, his entire body quaking with it.

“Is this going to happen every night?” John asks.

Eliza rolls her eyes, but she can’t keep the smile from her face. “You get used to it. I promise.”

 

* * *

 

John leaves early in the morning. He’s as quiet as he can be - he showers quickly, moves like a wraith through the bedroom as he gets dressed, clicks his prosthetic on as softly as possible, gives Alex and Eliza soft kisses on their foreheads while trying not to wake them, and finally Alex rolls over and says, “you can make noise. I like hearing you.”

“I just didn’t want to disturb you,” John says, half-apologetic.

“Believe me, if anyone around here is disturbing, it’s Alex,” Eliza mumbles. 

“You should be getting up too,” Alex tells her, “aren’t you working today?”

“School’s closed. Last week a kid shot a bottle rocket into the vents and when we opened it up, there were so many drugs. Like,  _ so many. _ They’re making sure there’s nothing else that’s been tossed in there. I should find a different school to work at.”

“You love it there,” Alex says.

“I love it there,” Eliza agrees. “Better me than someone who’d yell at them for their shenanigans.”

“Are you even capable of yelling?” John asks, sitting on the edge of the bed to put his socks on.

Eliza laughs. “You should just hope you never have to find out.”

“She’s terrifying,” Alex stage whispers.

“Noted. Love you both, have a great day, see you tonight, I’ll bring home dinner and the Burr-Jeffs.” John drops a final kiss on each of their foreheads, buckles his belt, and rushes out the door.

Alex turns to Eliza. “When did we start saying I love you?”

“I think it probably says something that I don’t remember,” Eliza tells him, and Alex groans.

“It’s still just physical.”

“Just physical,” Eliza agrees.

 

* * *

 

Alex decides to go back to freelancing. He has a few sites that will pay him decent money for articles - and they like it when his articles are inflammatory. He pounds out a few thousand words about movies or history or politics, pitches his articles to his three favourite sites, drinks far too much Monster, and by mid-day he’s bored and understimulated.

“How much is Cracked paying you for your Ghostbusters rant?” Eliza asks as she sits on the floor and sorts through their boxes.

“Couple hundred bucks. Not bad.” He finishes up his editing and sends off the final draft, sets his laptop carefully aside, and then throws himself sideways on the couch to groan. “I am  _ so bored, _ Eliza. How do I manage without something to do during the day?”

“Uh, what was it you said about your job? You called it - no, don’t tell me, there was some distinctly Hamilton phrasing there - a soul-sucking capitalist self-loathing factory. That was it.”

“Well, I was  _ right  _ -”

“You can’t say that about your job and then complain that you miss it,” Eliza says.

“Yes,” Alex says, “I can. Watch me: I miss it.”

“No, you don’t. You just miss the ability to complain about new, exciting things every day.”

“Okay, fair,” Alex admits.

“So why don’t you channel all that complaining into another article? I hear Buzzfeed is pretty easy to sell to -”

“Oh,  _ fuck _ Buzzfeed,” Alex says. “Okay, I’ll pitch something to them, but you have to listen to me complain about them while I do it.”

“Deal,” Eliza says, a smile hovering about her lips.

He milks that for all it’s worth. Alex finds something new and exciting to complain about for at least four hours - first it’s the poor quality of free stock images, then it’s the fact that you can’t argue effectively on Twitter because  _ who the hell can stick to 140 characters? _ \- and by the time he’s started to whine about a lack of decent sources for the weird new meme clogging up all his feeds, the door opens and the Burr-Jeffersons are exploding into the apartment.

“It’s a Thomas day,” Thomas says, bouncing his daughter on his hip.

“I brought alcohol,” Aaron says.

“Thank God,” Eliza says, “I have been listening to Alex complain for at  _ least  _ a thousand years -”

“A thousand years? Are you sure? Did I wander into a temporal anomaly at work again?” John deposits far too much sushi on the coffee table and rips his tie off with the air of a freed prisoner. “I have bested another day of law. Take that, adulthood!”

“We are all very proud and impressed. Please tell me you brought home some Monster,” Alex says, and he makes a noise that almost sounds orgasmic when John digs four cans out of his messenger bag.

“You are not allowed to have any more today,” Eliza tells Alex, and he makes direct eye contact and pops a can open as John disappears into the bedroom.

“Oops,” he says. 

“Are you aware your heart is actually just going to give up one of these days?” Aaron asks.

“Are you aware that you’re a blowjob?” Alex fires back.

“Wrecked,” Thomas says solemnly. 

“See, I was sad about flying back home tomorrow,” Aaron says, “and now I’m not. Eliza, can I leave my husband here? I’d say he’s house trained, but -”

“No, you absolutely cannot leave your husband here - I have enough boys to take care of.”

“I’m only a boy, like, part-time,” Thomas protests. “And I come with a cute baby -”

“She’s coming with me, princess,” Aaron says.

“Okay, so I can just shack up with Teddy and make another one -”

“Can you give that one to us?” John asks, poking his head out of the bedroom door.

“You didn’t make the  _ first  _ one!” Aaron says. “That was  _ my  _ job! Well, mostly Teddy’s, but -”

“This is giving me, like, an image of you and Teddy just sitting on the floor, surrounded by baby Lego or something,” Alex tells Aaron. “And you lose one of the parts so you have to stop the construction and hunt for it and it takes like, an hour, and by that time you’re tired and making the baby isn’t any fun anymore -”

“Wow, why does anyone even have sex, that sounds  _ way _ better,” Thomas deadpans.

John saunters in, wearing joggers and an oversized hoodie, and throws himself on the couch beside Alex. “Pass me the tiny human,” he says, and Thomas deposits Theo into his arms; John wastes no time zipping her into his hoodie and rubbing her back.

“Is she going to sleep?” Aaron asks.

“Did you hack our baby?” Thomas adds.

“John is amazing at calming down screaming brats,” Eliza tells them, looking meaningfully at Alex.

“This is ageism,” he protests, and he finishes his Monster with a frown.

 

* * *

 

Alex manages to coax Aaron into betting $20 he won’t eat a ball of wasabi, and then spends the rest of the night complaining.

“I hate the way wasabi tastes,” he grumps, pretending to wipe away tears with his hard-earned $20.

“You’d think you would actually consider things before you do them,” Aaron says. “Alright, it’s been great, but we fly out early tomorrow and Theo is gonna be  _ cranky _ if she doesn’t get a good sleep. Time to bounce. Hand me my progeny, John.”

“Good luck,” John tells him, “my hands may be gentle but they are strong, and I will fight you for the child.”

“Give me the baby,” Thomas says, drawing himself up to his full height. John pulls a heavily exaggerated frown and hands Theo back.

Aaron gathers the various baby paraphernalia - all of which seems to have exploded out of the diaper bag over the course of the night - and hugs Alex, then Eliza, then John. “It’s been way too long,” he says. “If you’re ever down in Charlottesville, let us know. Come stay with us. We’d love to have you, and Teddy will probably be around too.”

“I keep meaning to ask - is she living with you?” Alex asks.

“Some of the time,” Aaron says. “But she travels a lot. Time with us, time with Angie, time just kicking around Europe - she went and hung out in Sweden for a while last time she was over there -”

“As you do,” says John.

“We miss her when she’s gone, don’t we, baby?” Aaron says, kissing Theo’s forehead. “You miss mama when she goes away but she brings you back lots of presents and kisses, doesn’t she? When’s mama home, baby? One more week and then you get to see mama!”

Theo crows and kicks her feet, but her eyes are half-open and her voice is groggy.

“Sleepy baby means daddies get to go back to the hotel and spend time doing sexy grown up things like watching the news and drinking,” Thomas says. “God, I am looking forward to that. We can watch the  _ news, _ Aaron! Let’s go.”

“Thanks for dinner,” Aaron says. “Don’t get up, we can let ourselves out.”

When they leave, the apartment seems huge and quiet. John stretches into the silence, sighs, and says, “we should have one of those one day.”

“I like this new, nurturing John,” Eliza says, and Alex mutters something that makes John freeze.

“What was that?” he says.

“Nothing.”

“Alex,” he says, his tone dangerous. “What did you say?”

Alex looks to Eliza, whose face is carefully blank. He keeps looking at her as he says, “I said, I don’t trust it.”

“You can say these things to my face -”

“No,” Alex tells him. “I can’t. Because the last time I did you went anyway -”

“Are you still hung up on that? Alex, I  _ told _ you, it was shit with my dad, and I’m back and not leaving again -”

“You lost a leg, John,” Alex says. “That’s what made you come back. Not Eliza or me. You didn’t come back for us, you came back because you got scared. How do I know you won’t take off again? I want to feel safe with you, but I don’t know how. I don’t really know how to trust you.”

“I thought I was showing you that you could,” John says.

“It takes more than buying me cake and letting us move into your spare room - I appreciate it but you need to be  _ solid, _ you need to  _ listen _ to me -”

“I do listen to you, Alex. You’re the most important thing in my life.”

“Don’t do that,” Alex says, and Eliza takes his hand.

“Don’t do what? Tell you how I feel? Listen, I’ve been quiet about this shit - I’ve heard you two saying all this is just physical, but aren’t you tired of that? Aren’t you tired of shutting out the emotional side?” John pauses and adds, “are we  _ really _ just friends at this point?”

Alex looks at him, and Eliza says, “what would you rather this be?”

“I want to be together,” John tells her. “The three of us. The way we should have been before.”

Eliza glances at Alex. His lips are drawn into a thin line.

“I’m a lot of work,” he says finally.

“I’ve done the work before,” John says. “I’m ready to do it again. Tell me what you need me to be, and I’ll be it. No doubts, no faltering. I want to be here for the long haul - I want us all to have what Aaron and Thomas have. I’m not leaving again. Promise.”

“Prove it,” Alex says. His jaw sets, and his tone is challenging, but his stormy grey eyes are bright and wet and Eliza sees the quiver in his shoulders.

“Tell me what to do,” John says.

“No - that’s the opposite of what I want, John. I don’t want to have to tell you what role to play, I want you to be you and just - just love me, just be here, just love us and be ready for our shit and our messes and our bad moods and bad days. I want you to love us the way you think is best -”

“I do,” John says.

Alex goes silent and Eliza stands. She pauses, then wriggles into the space between them and tangles her fingers in their hair, one hand on each boy’s neck.

“John loves us,” she tells Alex. “Still just physical?”

He laughs, a sharp, honed sound. “It hasn’t ever been just physical, has it?”

“Alex, honey - I love you, but you are not a clever man,” she says.

“No,” he agrees, smiling.

“So are we - doing this?” John asks. He’s almost hesitant, but he swells a little.

“Yeah,” says Alex, and Eliza nods.

“Thank God you two finally got your shit together,” she says. “You are both much harder to manage than I thought you’d be.”

“This is the McDonald’s drive through all over again,” John protests, and Alex grins.

“Well, Eliza sneaking around usually ends up with us eating well,” he says, looking Eliza up and down. “And I think we should  _ both _ be doing that tonight. My wife deserves it.”

Eliza tugs his hair softly. “At last,” she says. “Some appreciation. Good boy.”

Alex practically purrs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos motivate me to get off my ass and go to class. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	10. Chapter 10

John comes home every day smelling like cigarette smoke and printer toner. The smoke nestles in his hair, a wreath of scent sent up every time he moves his head. The scent of toner clings to his hands, his shirts, his ties, and sometimes there’s streaks of it on his pants where he wiped it from his fingers.

“You need to stop smoking,” Eliza always tells him when he comes home, and more often than not he pulls a cigarette from behind his ear, tucks it firmly between his lips, and says, “what’s smoking? Never heard of it.” When she really pesters him, he always mentions he started in high school and had precious few other comforts when he was in the army - and he’s given up enough, it’s been hard, and if he wants to smoke, he’ll damn well smoke.

“We’ll see,” she always says, and it sounds less like a threat than a promise.

On the weekends, John smells like graphite and charcoal. He sketches Alex and Eliza constantly - asleep, on the couch, working, laughing, in motion. He sketches Alex in anger, in repose, in action, popping open cans of Monster, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sketches Eliza turning her head, capturing the flawless angle of her jaw; he brings her to life in quick, neat strokes of a pencil, the long smooth cascade of her hair, the brightness of her smile.

Alex is wary, still; he knows the way it stings when John packs up and loses interest, and the fiery, reckless boy has become a fiery, reckless man - although time and loss have tempered him somewhat. There’s more warmth in him now, less anger, less impulsivity. Alex finds the warmth as broad and boundless as the antagonism used to be.

And God, sex with Eliza is good - but sex with the both of them, with Eliza soothing him and John stringing him out, is  _ ethereal. _

“I want you to be hard on me,” Alex says one day, and John gets slowly more and more rough as time goes by; he doesn’t hold back as much now when he paddles or canes Alex, doesn’t pull punches when he talks down to him. Eliza thrills at it - she loves the way Alex opens up to harsh treatment, the way he goes soft and pliant and raw, and most of all, she loves cuddling him after, when he’s weak with the pleasure and ready to be loved.

Most of all, there’s trust. Alex trusts John to pull back when he gives signs of being too close to the edge - and there’s been times when he’s been going too hard, too far, and John notices and brings him back, holds him close, keeps him level.

“I trust you,” Alex whispers one night, when a flashback hit out of nowhere and John pulled out and cuddled him back to himself. 

“I’ll always keep you safe,” John promises.

So when notice comes from their insurance company that Alex’s top surgery is officially covered, Alex feels safe saying to John, “I need your help.”

“Yeah?” John asks, as he sits combing through the tangles in Eliza’s hair. “What with?”

Alex glances at Eliza and says, “top surgery’s happening. I have a surgeon, I have funding, I can schedule the date fine - but recovery’s gonna suck and I’ll need someone to pick me up, I’ll need you both to help take care of me - one of you will probably need to take a few weeks off work -”

“I’ll do it,” John says, before Eliza can say anything.

“I could easily get time off,” Eliza says, but John shakes his head.

“You need to be there more than I need to be at my job,” he says. “What would they do if you took off for a couple weeks? Would they just get another youth worker in? Wouldn’t that be disruptive for the kids? I just do paperwork - you would  _ not  _ believe how many officers do illegal shit and then ask me to clean up the mess. They won’t miss me. Besides, they owe me - if they try to get weird about it, I can always pull the ‘you-stole-my-foot’ card.”

“Does that work?” Alex asks.

“Steal my other foot and find out,” John tells him. “I’ll use that to guilt you for the rest of your life.”

“Well, yeah, but I’ll have gotten a free foot out of it. So who’s the real winner?” Alex says, and Eliza throws a pillow at him.

“His foot is right there - you can do whatever weird foot things you want to it, you don’t need to steal it -”

“Stay approximately five thousand miles away from my feet if you’re doing weird foot things,” John says.

“How many feet are in five thousand miles?” Alex asks. “Cause if I were into feet that’d be super hot -”

“Kinkshame,” Eliza says.

“Kinkshame,” John agrees.

“You guys are really rude about my fake kinks, you know that?” Alex says. “I need a new boyfriend and a new wife.”

“At last,” Eliza says, with the most innocent face she can muster. “We finally learn why you’re stealing the foot. You’re going to date it, aren’t you?”

“I hate my life,” Alex tells her, but he can’t keep the smile from his face.

 

* * *

 

Alex gets more and more jittery in the weeks leading up to the surgery, and it doesn’t help that he has to go off his mood medication. He swings into a low immediately, and then that shifts and he’s manic, sleeping a couple hours a night if he’s lucky, talking a mile a minute, writing endlessly until his fingers are numb. He tugs at his binders continuously, complaining about the pressure, and then switches gears and talks about how nervous he is to give them up. “It feels like armour,” he says. “What am I gonna do when I don’t have my armour anymore?”

“Carry me on your back like a shield,” John says.

“Not funny,” Eliza scolds him. “Be nice. He’s nervous.”

There are endless worries about complications, not least of which -

“What am I gonna do if my nipples fall off?”

“They won’t fall off,” Eliza says.

“They totally might,” Alex insists. “Like, that’s a real side effect or whatever. They can just, you know, fall off.”

“Do they burst off, like launching a rocket, or do they just slough off?” John asks. Eliza gags.

“Gross, please don’t be so graphic -”

But Alex is suddenly delighted, and he whips out his phone to google it. “I’d assume they just kinda … peel off?” he says. “Like, the graft rejects -”

“Stop,” Eliza insists, but John can’t resist a last comment.

“No-nip Alex,” he says, and Alex chokes with laughter.

Between the nervousness, there’s excitement, and it doesn’t seem to be all mania, either. Alex plans tattoos, dozens of them, and then scraps his ideas and starts new ones; John sketches them for him, sometimes digging out body paint to map them over his skin.

“What if I get vines on the scars?” Alex asks. “Like, blackberry thorns or something.”

John hums as he thinks. “It’ll hurt a lot, you know. Tattooing on scar tissue  _ sucks.” _

“I’m tough,” Alex says, and Eliza snorts.

“Tough?” she says. “Last week you got a paper cut and you’re  _ still _ complaining.”

Alex pouts and mutters, “it’s taking a very long time to heal.”

And then comes the night before the surgery, and Alex can’t settle at all: he’s constantly standing up and pacing, insisting he wants to go for a walk, changing his mind and saying he’s too scared to leave the apartment, throwing himself into John’s or Eliza’s lap, and getting up again. His legs jiggle when he sits; he can’t keep his hands still.

He tries, every few minutes, to get a Monster from the fridge or make a pot of coffee, but Eliza stops him every time. “No caffeine,” she tells him, barely looking up from the files in her hands. “You’re fasting. You can have water.”

“My blood is supposed to be at  _ least _ fifty percent caffeine, and I have a headache,” Alex complains.

“No,” John says. “Not allowed. Down.”

Alex obediently drops to the floor cross-legged.

“Good boy. Stay,” John adds.

“Nice,” Eliza says approvingly. “You should teach me to do that.”

“You just need to assert your dominance. Check it out.” John gets up, hoists Alex, throws him over his shoulder, and walks to the bedroom, wobbling a little without his cane. “You got  _ big, _ baby girl. This used to be  _ way _ easier,” he grunts.

“Get wrecked,” Alex tells him. “You just got weak.”

John tosses him onto their bed, swats his thigh. “Watch your manners. What do I have to do to make you stay put and get some sleep?” he asks. “I know it’s hard, I know you’re off your meds, but you need to be well rested for tomorrow.”

Alex’s lips draw into a line. “Fuck me. Get me out of my head for a while.”

“Eliza, we’re smanging,” John calls. “You in?”

“In a bit,” she calls back, her voice distant and distracted. “Got case work for one of my kids. Let me finish up here and I’ll jump in.”

John undresses Alex, peels off his binder, and Alex puts his hands over his breasts, contemplative, concentrated. John touches him there, too, brushes his fingers along the underside, the gentle swell; and Alex arches into the touch and makes a soft noise that could be mourning or a moan.

“Do you think you’ll miss them?” Alex asks, and John isn’t sure if he’s questioning himself.

“Maybe a little,” he says anyway. “Will you?”

Alex hums, a nasal, noncommittal noise. “Maybe,” he echoes. “A little.”

He leans into John’s touch, kisses him open-mouthed and sloppy, and moves his hands from his breasts to tangle them in John’s hair. John kisses him back hard; he nips at Alex’s bottom lip, sucks at it, and then breaks away to kiss down his neck, his collarbone, between his breasts. He presses reverent lips against each nipple. “If these fall off,” John says, “I’m gonna be a little disappointed.”

“We can just tattoo new ones on,” Alex says, but there’s a ghost of uncertainty in his smile.

John shucks his clothes and Alex reaches out to touch. He traces the lines of John’s pectorals, thumbing his nipples, and furrows his brow. “I won’t look like this,” he says.

“No,” John agrees, and he waits.

“But I’ll be flat,” Alex says. “Flat with huge scars.”

“Yes,” John tells him. He takes his leg off and digs a condom out of the drawer. Alex rolls it onto him and then straddles him, and as he sinks down on John’s cock, he puts his hands flat on the hard muscle of his chest. He can’t seem to drag himself away - he traces beneath each pectoral, frowning with concentration, as he grinds his hips. Even distracted as he is, he’s fluid, working John’s cock perfectly; he clenches down at each stroke and he’s hot and wet and perfect, and John has to hold back to keep from rolling them over and fucking Alex hard.

There’s pain, though, in the way that Alex is looking at him, the way Alex is touching him - so he stays still and lets his pretty boy concentrate.

“John?” Alex says suddenly. “Do you think this is a mistake?”

“How long have you wanted this?” John asks by way of response.

“I mean - forever. Like, beyond forever. I remember when I was twelve and they first, like, popped out of my chest, and I was like, put those things back -”

“So if you’ve never wanted them, how is it a mistake to get them taken off you?”

Alex doesn’t respond to that. Instead, he says, “do you remember how nice they used to be?”

“What, like, back in college?”

“Yeah. Like, there wasn’t hair on them -”

“Baby,” John says, “you love your hair.”

“Yeah, but, you know - and they’re all wrecked and flat from binding and testosterone -”

John pulls him down and kisses him softly. “You’re perfect,” he whispers against Alex’s lips. “They’re perfect. And tomorrow, when they’re gone, you’ll still be perfect. Always. So, no, your chest isn’t gonna look like mine - our bodies are different. And yeah, you’re going to have some pretty big scars, and that’s okay. You’ve wanted this for years and I know you’re scared, but you’re so close -”

Eliza slips into the room, strips off her clothes, takes in their positions, and quietly gets into bed. She peppers kisses across Alex’s back, between his shoulders, her hands stroking his belly softly. Alex puts his hands over hers and lifts them to his breasts; she holds them, her body pressed against his, her chin on his shoulder. “Hey, pretty boy,” she says. Her right hand strays down to his clit and strokes it, rough and rapid, the way he likes it. “You worried?”

“Mmm,” he hums. “Yeah.”

“You wanna come and then go to sleep?”

“Mmm -”

“John filling you up, Alex? You like the way he feels?”

“Yeah -”

“Come on, baby girl,” John says, grinding his hips up to meet Alex’s. “I can feel you getting tight -”

Alex squeezes his eyes shut, and John and Eliza both pretend not to notice the tears trailing down his cheeks. His breath hitches; Eliza rubs harder, nips at his earlobe, and then he’s shuddering and curling into himself, making tiny noises that sound suspiciously like sobs.

John pulls out and Alex collapses sideways, his legs shaking. It only takes a moment of fucking into his hand for John to come, too; and then Eliza snuggles up to both of them, kissing Alex’s face all over.

“Need anything?” John asks her.

“You can take care of me after your little colonel is ready to go again,” she says. “Besides, we’re here to make sure Alex actually goes to sleep like a normal human being, instead of staying up til 5 AM like a weird goblin.”

“Shut the fuck off,” Alex says, but he’s sleepy and smiling.

John gathers Alex against his chest and strokes his back in long, smooth motions. “Stop saying words now,” he murmurs. “It’s time for angry little goblins to go to sleep.”

“Be here when I wake up?” Alex mumbles. “‘Liza?”

“Always,” Eliza says. “Remember? I kinda promised when we got married.”

“Mm,” Alex agrees.

“Me too,” John tells him. “I mean, I didn’t have to officially swear in front of a Jesus wizard that I’d love you forever or whatever -”

“They’re called priests,” Eliza says.

“- but I totally still  _ will _ love you forever, and then after that too, because I’m great.”

Alex chuckles, but it’s a groggy noise, thick with sleep. It’s not long before his breathing is heavy and slow; he’s limp against John’s chest, hair fanned out around his head.

“So I was reading online -”

“Uh oh,” John says, cringing at her no-nonsense tone.

“- and you need to stop smoking while he’s recovering. It’ll slow it down, and the longer he’s on his pain meds, the harder it’ll be for him to taper back onto the mood meds. We need to get him back on those as soon as we can, which means speedy recovery, which means no smoking. No, don’t make that face - not even outside. Besides, what happens if you’re on one of your smoke breaks and he needs something? I’m not saying this because I like seeing you suffer - just don’t smoke while he’s healing, and then you can do it all you want.” Eliza pairs her ultimatum with huge, pleading eyes and the slightest pout, and John groans.

“Okay,” he says. “I’ll stock up on patches and gum. But the second he’s back on his feet I’m eating an entire pack of cigarettes and you aren’t allowed to tell me no.”

“Deal,” Eliza says, although there’s a sneaky little curl in her smile that John can’t help but notice. “Now, about getting me off ...?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos do my readings so i can keep writing instead of being college. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoop whoop warning for implied past sexual abuse. take care of yourself if that's a trigger for you!

“Hey, baby.”

Alex opens his eyes and tries to focus on the tall, blurry shape in front of him. “Hey,” he says, probably.

“You’re pretty wrecked, huh?” John asks, leaning closer. “How about we just chill here for a bit and when you’re more awake, we’ll take you home. Eliza’s working but she’s off in an hour - I’ll let her know to come here, okay?”

Alex squints at John, then raises his hands to his chest, but John grabs his wrists before he can touch. “No, angel, you don’t touch the bandages. You’re probably still pretty numb but you don’t wanna fuck with them.”

“Fuck,” Alex says, and that seems to break down a wall, because suddenly he’s swearing, although it’s not angry - he’s just apathetically swearing, frowning vaguely at nothing. “Fuck shit fuck fuck fuck. Tits. _Fuck._ Fuck.”

“Yeah?”

“Motherfucker,” Alex adds, with finality.

“I agree,” John tells him. “Believe me. How do you feel? Are you in pain?”

He ponders this for a moment, before announcing, “they took my boobs.”

“Yeah, dude, they took them.”

“That’s theft,” Alex continues. “Motherfucker. Motherfuckers. More than one. Fuck.” He pauses for a moment, and then he starts and he says, “that’s so rude. That’s really fucking rude. I’m rude?”

“You’re, like, the rudest person I know, but I love you anyway. You wanna eat this?” John hands him a cracker; Alex accepts it and stares at it for a moment before putting it in his mouth and closing his eyes.

“This doesn’t taste like shit,” he announces around the cracker. “Like someone put wood in my mouth. It’s the least offensive cracker I’ve ever tasted. My taste buds want to be fucking offended.”

“The shit you talk isn’t offending them enough?” John asks.

“Can I have a coffee?” Alex asks. He accidentally manages to bite part of the cracker off and his eyes snap open with surprise. “I hacked it,” he whispers.

“Oh, you’re gonna be _fun_ for the next few days,” John says.

 

* * *

 

Alex stays mostly upright in the cab on the way home, but each stop and start jostles him painfully. Finally, John says to the driver, “he just got his chest cut open, can you please drive a little more smoothly?”

“Sure,” the driver says, as he pulls the car into a turn so tight it knocks Alex completely over.

John puts his arm around Alex to steady him. “You doing okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Alex, but he’s gritting his teeth and his eyes are half closed. “Is it time for my drugs yet?”

“No, you need to wait an hour. We’ll get some cold packs on your chest and set you up in bed. I’ll move the TV into the bedroom. You wanna sleep alone or with us, baby? Will it be easier on your chest if you get the whole bed?”

“Want you there,” Alex says. He leans his head against John’s shoulder; the cab rockets over a speed bump, and he turns his face, presses it against John’s neck, and groans, long and drawn out and agonized.

“Just a few more blocks,” John says, but his chest aches as he says it.

“Okay,” Alex says. “Where's Eliza?”

“Stuck at work. One of her kids is dealing with police and another had a restraining order against - you know what, not important, she can tell you later. She said she has to support the kids. She'll be home as soon as she can.”

Alex tears up and it spills over, cascading down his cheeks unchecked. There are no sobs; he looks absolutely helpless. He starts laughing suddenly and John startles at the jagged sound.

“If I get pregnant now the baby won't have any boobs for using,” Alex giggles helplessly, his expression one of deep horror.

“No, it won't, angel,” John agrees.

“I can't stop,” Alex says, choking on the laughter. “I can't stop?”

“Breathe through it. Take a deep breath.”

Alex keeps laughing - his laughter is greedy and consumptive and it wracks his whole body, makes him shake with the agony of it. It takes a while - it feels like years - before it slows, and then he hiccups and chuckles and breathes and it’s over, it’s gone, just a little quiver in his lips and a shuddering in his sternum as the last of it leaves him.

John manages to get him out of the cab at their building, supporting him as best as he can without putting any pressure on his sides or chest. The incisions extend to under his arms, and Alex is feeling them now, struggling to keep his arms down despite the pain. John takes his pack and leads him to the elevator; inside, Alex presses his face against John’s chest and groans deep in his throat.

“Hurts?” John asks.

“Yeah,” Alex says. “Please can I take some of the painkillers -”

“No, baby, not for another half hour.”

The journey from elevator to door to bed is long and agonizing; Alex stumbles every so often and he can’t go very fast, and John longs to pick him up and carry him, but he knows that would wound Alex deeper than anything else.

So he’s patient. He’s patient while Alex slowly pulls at the bottoms of his sweatpants with his feet and shimmies out of them. He’s patient while Alex unbuttons his shirt and struggles out of it without lifting his arms. He’s patient while Alex catches sight of the drains and gives a low moan of horror.

“They’re inside me,” he says.

“I know,” John says. “They have to stay for a few days.”

“I don’t want them inside me,” Alex says, tearing up. “It hurts and I don’t want them. Please take them out, John, please -”

Fuck it, John decides. Being fifteen minutes early on pain medication never killed anyone.

He settles Alex, fetches water, and carefully triple-checks the bottle before putting a Percocet on Alex’s tongue. And then there’s just waiting - waiting for the medication to kick in, waiting for Alex to fall asleep, waiting for the tears he knows are coming.

They break suddenly and Alex is sobbing, struggling to keep his chest as still as possible. “I think I made a mistake,” he says. “Can they put them back?”

John almost says no, but he catches himself and says instead, “you sleep on it and if you still want them back when you wake up, we can ask.”

“Can I have my binder?” Alex asks.

“You can’t wear it,” John tells him.

“Just to hold it -”

John gets his binder and his favourite stuffed animal - a weathered, well-loved fox - and tucks Alex in with them. Alex clutches at them desperately; his binder is old and worn, the seams reinforced many times over, stained, ratty, and - at times - fiercely loathed, but it’s _his,_ and he holds onto it now, like he’s holding a lifeline.

His eyes are already half-lidded, and he drops off somewhere in the middle of the worst horror movie John could find on Netflix (Zoombies, which was, somewhat disappointingly, not about zombie cars). His breathing is slow and deep; even in sleep, he holds tight to his binder and John wonders idly just how hard it would be to take it away.

He leaves the binder. He dims the lights, sets an alarm on his phone for the next dose of his medication, makes sure Alex is upright and goes to nap in the spare room.

 

* * *

 

John is woken up by the phone ringing. With clumsy hands he holds it to his ear and manages to mumble into it, “hello?”

“John - hey, I’m sorry I’m so late, I’m at the police station, Zoe’s pressing charges, I’m supporting her, she’s really scared - that’s not important - how’s Alex? Is he okay? Does he need anything?”

“He’s asleep,” John says. “Or he was, last I checked. I was grabbing a nap. There’s a couple hours before I need to give him his pills again. Don’t worry, I can hold everything together here, you just take care of yourself. Do you need anything?”

“If you could have some dinner ready when I get home - I haven’t had a chance to eat at all today, things have been so hectic. Oh, shit -” There’s the sound of fumbling, and then distantly, Eliza’s saying, “hey, girl, you okay? Yeah, I understand, it’s scary. Give me a second to say goodbye and I’ll be right there, do you need a drink or some tissues -”

She’s back, suddenly, clear again. “I need to go. Love you so much, please tell Alex I love him and I’ll be there as soon as I can, keep him safe -”

“Is that your boyfriend?” John hears, as if from a distance, and he catches Eliza starting to say, “yes,” and then the line goes dead.

“Well,” he says to the empty room, “I think she has enough to deal with.”

The Chinese restaurant a couple blocks away delivers, so that’s dinner for the two of them taken care of. John considers for a moment before tossing together a fruit salad for Alex and popping open a can of Ensure. Dinner for three, easy as that. What else? The apartment is definitely not Alex-accessible now that he’s in t-rex mode, so the next step is putting everything Alex uses within easy reach. A line of clean mugs on the counter next to the kettle and the tea; the box of coffee pods beside the Keurig; piles of cereal bars on the side table by Alex’s favourite spot on the couch; the brand new lap desk John bought propped against the coffee table. He considers for a moment before pulling the duvet off the spare bed and draping it over the back of the couch, readily at hand in case of blanket burrito emergency.

Laundry is another thing that needs to be done - they’ve all been so busy that none of them have had a chance to get to it, so John takes the fruit and the Ensure into the bedroom, prepared to pick up the basket, and when he walks in Alex is shaking with silent tears and immediately laundry is forgotten.

“Baby, hey, what’s going on?” John asks. He sets down the bowl and puts his hand on Alex’s shoulder, and Alex immediately smacks his hand away, his body shuddering with tension.

“Don’t ever fucking touch me again,” he snarls, so John pulls his hands back and puts them up in a display of harmlessness.

“Okay,” he says, keeping his voice calm. “Okay. I’m not touching you. You need to be careful with your arms - and your drains are filling up, I need to empty them out, okay? I brought you some food, I’ll empty your drains and then you can eat, you must be hungry - can I touch your shoulder?”

Alex doesn’t say anything.

“Baby?” John prompts.

Alex stays silent. He doesn’t look at John. His eyes seem glazed and half-focused. There’s tightness in his shoulders and he hunches over, protecting his chest, and John suddenly realizes he’s scared.

He kneels by the bed and puts a hand on Alex’s arm, and Alex suddenly goes limp.

“Angel, are you okay?” John asks. “Tell me what’s going on.”

“Just do what you want,” Alex whispers.

“Alex?”

“I’m not gonna fight back, just get it over with -”

“Alex,” John says, “do you know who I am? It’s me, Alex - it’s John - we’ve known each other for like, ten years, and I’m not going to hurt you -”

“Please,” Alex says.

“Can I clean your drains?”

“Do whatever you want -” Alex closes his eyes and turns his face away. “Can you just do it fast, I’m not feeling so good -”

John checks his drains, and Alex whimpers as his hands brush over the compression bandages. “It’s still me, Alex,” John tells him. “Your drains are pretty full, I’m gonna empty them, it’s still me, I’m not doing anything that’ll hurt you.”

As he empties the lines and tips the fluid out, John keeps checking Alex’s face. He’s exhausted, and he doesn’t struggle, although he whimpers a little when John jostles the lines at all.

“Does it hurt?” John asks. Alex doesn’t reply; he just squeezes his eyes shut tighter.

John finishes, pins the drains back onto the bandages, and gives the bowl of fruit to Alex. “Done,” he says. “And you get more pills in a couple hours. Your pain stuff and your antibiotics.”

“Aren’t you gonna fuck me?” Alex asks, toneless, resigned. John’s skin suddenly prickles into goose bumps and his chest feels ice cold.

“No,” he says, trying to keep his voice level. “Doctor said no fucking for a couple weeks and it doesn’t sound like you want to have sex right now anyway.”

Alex laughs, but it’s bitter and toneless. “I told you I wouldn’t fight back,” he says.

“Alex -”

“Mason, can you stop messing with my head and just do what you want -”

“I’m not going to fuck you,” John says firmly. “That’s final.”

“Fine,” Alex says, and he crams a piece of cantaloupe into his mouth. He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says around the cantaloupe, “this is the worst - when you tell me it’s not gonna happen anymore and then you do it anyway -”

“Alex, it’s John, I’m not going to -”

“Just don’t wake me up when you decide to do it, okay? I’m tired.”

“Okay,” says John, giving up. “Okay. I won’t wake you up.”

“Okay,” Alex says.

John considers staying, considers talking Alex through whatever is happening, but something in him knows it’s useless. He leaves instead. He pauses in the doorway, turns around, and says, “I’m sorry, Alex.”

It’s partly true - he’s sorry for what happened, he’s sorry for what’s happening - and it’s partly that it’s easier than saying “I love you,” at least for the moment.

“No you aren’t,” Alex mutters.

John doesn’t argue. He closes the door.

 

* * *

 

 **Eliza:**  
\- Hey how is he

 **John:**  
\- Fine. He’s asleep.

 **Eliza:  
** \- Any trouble today?

 **Eliza:**  
\- John? Are you there?

 **Eliza:**  
\- Please dont worry me like this is he okay should I come home now

 **John:**  
\- He’s fine. No trouble. Take your time coming home. I’ll keep him safe.

 **Eliza:**  
\- Okay. Thank you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos bring me bowls of fruit. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com) and feel free to check out my [patreon!](https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4040176)


	12. Chapter 12

Eliza bursts through the door like a whirlwind. Her hair has come loose from her usual neat braid, there’s an obvious coffee stain on her skirt, and she looks thin and frazzled and far too worried.

“Is he asleep?” she asks John. She stops, glances around the apartment, and adds, “there’s food here? Waiting for me?”

“You told me to get dinner,” John says from where he’s lying on the couch.

“And everything is easy for Alex to reach -”

“Less for you to do. Took care of your laundry, too, and ironed all your shirts. Come sit down, angel.”

She trots down the hallway instead, tripping lightly on the balls of her feet, and peeks in around the bedroom door, which has been left ajar. Her face softens, the tension leaving her eyebrows; she breathes out slowly, watches Alex for a moment, and then turns back to John. “He’s really out, huh? Any problems? Was he bleeding? Uncomfortable?”

“Uncomfortable, yeah, but that’s pretty normal, all things considered - I kept him level, I got his meds in him, he’s fine. Everything is taken care of. Come relax,” he tells her.

Eliza drops her bag and flops onto the sofa beside John. He puts an arm around her and kisses her shoulder as she snags one of the boxes of food from the coffee table and shovels noodles into her mouth.

“Oh my God,” she says through a mouthful of chicken and cabbage. “Oh my God, food is  _ so _ good, you have  _ no  _ idea how hungry I was -”

“You need to each lunch tomorrow,” John tells her.

“How did you know -”

“You told me, angel. On the phone. I’ll pack you a lunch tomorrow so you don’t forget.”

Eliza suddenly tears up. She puts the box of noodles down, turns, and buries her face against John’s shoulder. Before long, she’s sobbing; she clutches at his shirt and holds on like she’s afraid he’ll disappear, and her entire body quakes with the force of her crying.

“You’re okay,” John tells her, gently untangling the hair tie out of her braid and combing through it with his fingers. Her hair is silky smooth and separates easily under his fingers into the long raven cascade he loves to wrap around his hand. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

“I thought there was going to be so much to do - we’ve been planning surgery for ages, planning how to manage it, and then I thought it would just be me, cleaning and handling him and washing his hair and giving him his meds, and I knew we wouldn’t be able to do it with how little we get paid, and I was so worried - and you’re managing all of this, you’re taking care of it -”

“Take a deep breath, baby,” John tells her, and he kisses her eyelids. She gives him a tiny giggle and touches his face with her fingertips. He’s stubbly; it’s rough and raspy all along his jaw, above his lip, down his throat, and he’s gorgeous like this, in an old t-shirt and paint-stained joggers, his curls in a messy ponytail, his face unshaven and open and sleepy. He looks tired, but more than that, he looks  _ purposeful. _ He looks like he’s right where he needs to be. Eliza feels herself swell with love for him, for the man who kept her husband safe, who let her take her time. He looks at her like she’s something precious; he looks at her like she’s something he wants to devour.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” she tells him.

“You’re both mine,” he says. “I have to take care of the most important people in my life. Did you think I’d just check out?”

“No, I didn’t,” she says, wiping her eyes absently on his t-shirt. “You - hang on, you smell different.”

John rolls up one sleeve to show off the nicotine patch on his arm. “No smoking. Told you I could do it.”

“I appreciate you working so hard -”

“What, like you don’t? Finish up your dinner and I’ll run you a bath. Alex has a couple hours before his next dose so we have time to snuggle.”

“And then bed?” she asks.

John clicks his tongue. “I think maybe we shouldn’t share the bed with him tonight. Give him some space.”

“Why?” Eliza asks.

“His pain,” John says, but his eyes flicker away from hers for a moment. “We don’t want to jostle him if we move in our sleep. I’ll take care of him if he wakes up in the night, don’t worry -”

“If we’re not there, how will you know?”

“I’m a light sleeper. If anything happened at night while I was deployed I had to be up and ready in an instant. Besides - I can get there faster on one leg than you can on two, considering how groggy you are when you wake up.”

Eliza cracks a little smile through her tears. “That’s probably true.”

She manages, with John’s help, to pull herself together enough to eat. They put the rest of the food away together; Eliza pretends not to notice John glancing regularly at the clock and the barely-open bedroom door. He disappears to run the bath and she takes her time following him; she stops in the kitchen to pick up two cans of raspberry-mango cider before letting herself into the bathroom. The tub is already half full, and John offers her a basket of bath bombs.

“All of them,” she says.

“What is it you always say to Alex? Oh, right - you can have one,” John tells her, but he can’t keep the smile from his face.

Eliza trades him a cider for a glittery midnight blue bath bomb, which she tosses into the tub. It explodes gloriously; she can’t even wait for the glitter to disperse before she climbs in.

“Oh my God, I needed this,” she says, popping open her can. John raises his in response.

“Yeah you did,” he agrees, perching on the edge of the tub.

“Sure you don’t wanna get in with me?” she asks. She trails her fingers up his thigh and palms his cock through his sweatpants; John makes a soft noise and tips his head back.

“Is Alex okay with -”

“We talked about it,” Eliza says. “Like, way back. After the first time you two slept together without me. There’s no point in jealousy if we’re both fucking you - so yeah, he’s okay with it, I think he thinks it’s happened already -”

“It’s a real travesty that it hasn’t,” John says. “You know, happened already.”

“It is,” Eliza says, and then John is shucking clothes and taking his leg off, and before she knows it, the hard muscle of his body is pressed against hers and water is threatening to spill over the sides of the tub.

John bites the side of her neck, possessive and bestial, and she arches against him. The cider almost drops from her hand; she manages to put it on the tile between the tub and the wall, and John’s joins it a split second later, just before he busies himself sucking bruises into the skin just below her collar bones. Her nails rake down his back in long, slow pulls; she can feel his cock hardening against her, and she reaches down with one hand to grab it.

“We can’t fuck in here,” Eliza tells him, as she tugs at his cock. Her thumb rubs the head, against the slit, and John breathes heavy and ragged in her ear.

“But -”

“Nope, not forcing bath bomb water all up in me. We can get nice and worked up, you can rub my clit, maybe make me come that way, and then we’ll get in bed and you can pound me, okay?”

John’s fingers find her clit and, even underwater, she’s wet enough that there’s no drag, just the smooth feeling of him stroking little circles over it and pushing back the hood. Eliza makes a raw, vulnerable noise; John sinks his teeth into her shoulder, and she murmurs, “gentle, gentle,” until he eases up.

“I forget you aren’t him -” And he laughs, open and loud, delighted. “You’re softer. Not as many edges.”

“Yes,” she says, and it doesn’t matter that her chubby husband is the very image of softness - at least, physically - because what he’s saying is true. “Yes.”

“I forget - I can’t be as rough with you as with him -”

“John,” Eliza whispers through the pang in her heart, through the knowledge that even when it’s just the two of them, his heart is with Alex, and she repeats it, murmuring against his ear - “John, please, I love the way you touch me - when you look at me like I’m important - I just want to feel it -”

His thumb strokes over her clit, his fingers fluttering against her labia, and she lets herself come apart like that, with him touching her like she’s something special. There are so few spaces just for  _ her, _ and she holds fiercely to this one, to this place where nothing matters but his hands on her and his lips against her throat. The way he touches her is reverent, ethereal, and for a moment, she’s afraid that if she closes her eyes, if she doesn’t focus, it’ll slip away -

“Relax,” he murmurs, and his other hand finds her thigh, rubs the tension out of the muscle. “Enjoy this, kitten. Just let me take care of you.”

“I want you to take care of me,” she says, closing her eyes and throwing her head back.

“I will, I promise - I’ll always take care of you. Just let yourself feel this. Relax.”

She arches against him; his hand makes its way from her thigh to her breast, and he toys with her nipple, rubs it between his fingers, teases and tugs until it’s a stiff peak and her nerves are singing. With her eyes closed, surrounded by the warmth of the water, every new touch comes as a surprise; when he ducks his face beneath the surface and sucks at her nipple, she keens and her hips buck and just for an instant there’s a new, brilliant pressure on her clit, a perfect angle that makes her breath struggle in her chest.

He resurfaces and she says, “your thumb - you put it somewhere and it felt -”

John changes the angle and asks, “like that?”

“No, no,” Eliza tells him, struggling to make words happen properly, “right where - there’s the hood, and then it connects - right there, right by that connection, on the top - like behind the curve -”

And he finds it, finds the spot, and she gasps and rolls her hips, and he braces the back of his finger just below her clit for leverage - there’s the stroke of his thumb on top and the flat pressure of his finger beneath, and before she knows it she’s coming apart, shuddering to pieces under his hands.

“John, fuck,” she sobs, clutching onto him like she’s afraid he’ll disappear. His hard cock is pressed against her leg; he kisses her softly, a myriad of tiny kisses across her lips and down her jaw to her neck as the last of the contractions leave her and she goes limp.

“I love you,” he tells her, and she’s about to speak when a thin voice cries from down the hall and John is staggering to his foot. He comes out of the water in a surge of muscle and protectiveness; he doesn’t bother to try to put his leg back on, just hops out into the hallway, pausing to grab his cane from where it leans beside the bathroom door.

“Alex?” John calls. “You okay, baby?”

There’s something indistinct that Eliza can’t quite hear. John is dripping wet, and she worries for him, worries for his balance on one foot on the hardwood floor - 

She follows him, barely pausing to wrap herself in a towel and to grab one for him, and she finds him perched on the edge of the bed, and - and it’s something that hurts - he looks like he’s afraid to touch Alex.

“John?” she says, soft, questioning, but Alex is focused and the boys ignore her.

“John,” Alex says, his voice thick with sleep and pain.

“Yes,” John tells him.

“I thought you were -”

“Yeah, you did. But I’m not -”

“John.” Alex takes his hand and leans forward, touches his forehead to John’s shoulder, groans with the way it puts pressure on the skin of his chest.

“Did something happen while I was gone?” Eliza asks. She joins John on the edge of the bed, runs a hand up and down Alex’s back and scratches against the bandages; he makes a soft murmuring noise and breathes deep, leaning back into her hand.

John glances at Alex, at Eliza, back to Alex, and says, “there was - an incident - that I can tell you about when we go to bed.”

“What happened?” Alex asks. “Did I say something -”

“You - called me another name,” John says.

Alex’s face goes suspiciously blank. Eliza’s stomach drops, and it aches but she forces herself to ask, “was it -”

That’s as far as she gets.

“Mason,” John says, and Alex flinches and Eliza snaps to watch him, to examine his face for anything - but it’s blank again, the expression gone, like nothing had happened just then or ever before.

“Okay,” Alex says. “Can I have my painkillers?”

John pops the lid off the bottle and hands Alex one, and Alex stares at it for a moment.

“That’s your meds, baby,” John says.

“Can I have two?”

“Alex -” John frowns. “If the pain is that bad -”

“No,” Eliza says firmly, and for a moment she isn’t entirely sure who she’s reprimanding. “One. Take what you were prescribed.”

Alex bites his lip. “Okay, but -”

“No,” she repeats, but it’s gentler this time. John puts the bottle on the bedside table; Eliza doesn’t miss the way Alex’s eyes track it. She keeps scratching his back while John checks the drains and the bandages, and when he leaves to get Alex some fruit, she takes the opportunity to ask, “did you know you called him that?”

“No,” Alex says. “I had a nightmare - or something - that he was here again, and that John had left -”

“He was here with you all day, pretty boy. He says he was, anyway, and I believe him -”

“No, I know - I know he wouldn’t go - but I feel like -” Alex breaks off and closes his eyes, settles back into Eliza’s touch. That seems to be the end of the words, because he shuts down, and when John comes back, laden with sliced pears and strawberries, neither of them can coax any words out of him.

The percocet knocks him out quickly. Eliza and John sit with him until they’re sure he’s totally out, and then leave together, John carrying the bowl of half-eaten fruit. Just before she reaches out to turn out the light, Eliza picks up the bottle of percocet and pockets it.

Any other man might look ridiculous like this. John stands in the hallway, naked, all his weight on his single foot and his cane, hair damp and tangled, the patch of curls on his chest still dewy from the bath, and like this, as much of a mess as he is, he’s devastatingly handsome. He gives her his crooked smile and tangles his fingers in her hair and says, “I didn’t exactly get to finish up with you, you know.”

“Do you want me to get your leg?” she asks.

“Very romantic -”

“Sex won’t be a lot of fun if you fall and bust your ass on the way to bed,” she tells him, but her lips curl in the barest hint of a smile.

“I’ve gone further without it. If you could get it, though, and put it beside the bed for me, so when I wake up in the morning it’s easy to reach -”

Eliza kisses his lips, allows her hand to brush, just for an instant, against his cock, and then excuses herself to the bathroom. She gathers his prosthetic and his liner and their assortment of clothing, and takes a moment to hang up her towel before she makes her way back to the spare bedroom.

John sits on the bed, hard, all adoration and love and exhaustion, and Eliza straddles him - no preamble, no build up. She’s wet and he’s ready and they come together like they’ve both been aching for completion, like they’ve found salvation in each other.

She registers, as she sinks down on him, that she hasn’t bothered to put a condom on him - wonders if she’s been remembering to take her birth control, if she’s missed any pills - and then he’s bottoming out in her, making that groaning noise in his throat that gets her  _ soaked, _ and nothing else matters but the way he fucks her.

So she rides him, works up and down on him, kisses his face his neck his shoulders frantically, rapidly, like he’ll disappear if she breaks away. Eliza pulls his hair and sinks her teeth into him and she can almost feel the bruise rise under her sucking lips - there’s heat in his skin where there was only warmth before - and when she pulls back from the galaxies of freckles on his shoulder, she’s pleased, proud, to see purple marring the peppered softness of his skin.

“Fuck,” he breathes, bucking against her. She yanks his hair and he makes a soft noise, suddenly pliant and submissive like her Alex, and she breathes in his subservience.

“Good boy,” she murmurs back. John laughs a little but he fucks her harder, grinding his hips up into her - there’s something there, some submissiveness, she hasn’t seen before. Maybe it’s a relief for him to give up and let someone else be in charge, even just for a moment.

For her, this is power - this is control, this is something she can hold tight to and use to make the world be still.

Eliza takes his hand, puts it against her clit, and he obediently rubs until she’s shaking and gasping against him - and before she knows it, her orgasm is crashing through her, a shudder that starts in her spine and ripples through her limbs, and then she’s limp and open against him as he fucks into her and grunts and seizes and floods her with warmth.

She feels him slick inside her, lets him stay in her, lets him collapse back on the bed, falls on top of him. They breathe together - there’s stillness, there’s a sense of emptiness, without Alex. It isn’t right, and yet she thrills at the sick indulgence of this illicit coupling.

There’s surrender in John’s bones, in the gentle swell of his chest, but all Eliza can feel is the weight of her betrayal.

 

* * *

 

When Eliza opens her eyes sometime in the night, John is gone, and his side of the bed is cold. She feels full of him, still, although she knows - she knows - what he left in her was not enough to make her feel so heavy.

She reaches out, puts her hand on his pillow, imagines the soft yield of his curls under her hand.

When she gets up to look, he is right where she imagined, although perhaps not  _ how  _ she imagined - 

She looks into the bedroom that they should be sharing, and John is in a chair beside the bed, dead asleep sitting up. Alex holds tight to his hand.

She goes back to bed.

 

* * *

 

But an hour later she awakes again and she misses them terribly - 

So she takes her pillow and the blanket she’d been curled under, and she nestles into bed beside her Alex, beside her pretty boy, her heart aching with love for him. He looks smaller than she’s used to - he’s empty, with his eyes closed, silent, resigned. There’s a spark that’s missing. She wonders if it’s the grief or the medication or both or neither, something else entirely.

“I love you,” she murmurs into his shoulder, and tears spring into her eyes, although she wouldn’t be able to explain why if either of her boys were awake to ask.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos pause time so i can get a full night's sleep for the first time in my life. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	13. Chapter 13

When Eliza wakes up, John is gone again - the chair is empty - but there are sounds from the kitchen, something suspiciously like the Keurig running, the scent of coffee, and she follows her nose and the ache in her heart to the kitchen. She follows the ache to the boy, her reckless boy, standing at the counter and staring out into nothing, and he hasn’t heard her - so she comes up close behind him and kisses his back, between his shoulders, and wraps her arms around him. He startles at the touch but he eases back into her and hums with pleasure as she tucks her chilly hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

“I thought you’d need a little boost before work,” he says, pouring cream into a mug brimming with coffee. “And I’ve packed you something for lunch - you make sure you eat it, angel. Promise me.”

“I promise,” she says, and he turns and kisses her lips. John tastes like mint, and his eyes are half-closed but his hair is neatly pulled back and the stubble is gone. He’s missed a little patch of beard on one cheek; Eliza kisses him there, savours the imperfection.

“Good. Anything else you need before you get ready?”

“I need to talk to you,” she says. “About the Mason thing. If he’s having trouble -”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t find out about that,” John says.

“Why would you not want me to find out about it?” she asks, and he gives her a sharp laugh.

“I didn’t want you to worry. He just - started talking, you know, and he sounded so fucked up about it, and I couldn’t help him down. Just kept asking if I was gonna fuck him - it was really fucked up -” and he averts his eyes, there’s guilt in the way he holds his shoulders, and Eliza so rarely gets angry - but she’s needled now, full of protective anger over her beautiful boy.

“John, if you can’t handle the emotional part of this, you need to be honest. He’s in a bad place and I know things are going to come up - the last thing he needs is someone avoiding it - his trauma isn’t about  _ you, _ it’s about  _ him, _ and if you aren’t ready for that you need to tell me, right now, so I can take time off work -”

“It’s not that,” he says. “Believe me. I know it isn’t about me.”

“Are you sure? Because that’s what people do - they hear about trauma like this and they make it personal. They go, ‘I can’t hear about this because it hurts me,’ and the person who’s gone through it, if they’re reliving it, then they don’t have anyone to depend on - they end up comforting the person who should be comforting them. Apologizing for talking about it. It isolates them. I see this at work all the time and I know it’s hard to separate yourself, I know it’s hard not to get emotional, but he doesn’t need you to get emotional, he needs you to listen and be  _ there _ for him -”

“When I came back,” John says, “I went to my father’s house. Just while I recovered. I stayed there with him and I mourned my leg and I told him how it felt to go to sleep with my foot still attached and wake up with it gone. I told him what it felt like to get shot at, how it feels to have shrapnel stuck inside me, so even now that it’s healed over I still have war inside my body. How sometimes a chunk of metal comes out of my skin and I wonder if it’s part of a bus stop or a building, if it’s something mundane, stuff you see every day, stuff that shouldn’t be inside a person. And every single time I opened my mouth, he checked out. Didn’t look at me. He wound up telling me it hurt too much to listen, so I shut up, I did my physio, and I left.”

He pauses to look at her, and she waits. Opens her eyes and closes her mouth. Watches his face. She hears something there -  _ when I came back, _ not  _ when I came home. _

She wonders,  _ have you come home now? _

The question can wait.

“So believe me, I understand - I know what it’s like to stop talking about it because people won’t let your story be just yours. Everyone wants to suffer right along with you - sure, fine, it’s hard work listening, it’s hard work hearing it. Bullshit. I’m not going to do that to him. There’s a reason I don’t talk about the war. Have you ever heard me mention it?”

“No,” she says. Guilt hangs heavy in her stomach, and she wonders how she let it go so long, how she never asked. How she never thought of it.

“Right, because that exact shit you were talking about happened to me. So I’m not saying I can’t handle listening to him talk about the dark shit he’s been through,” he says. “I’m asking you how to do it right.”

“Okay,” she says. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he says, and for a moment they just hold to each other, for balance or for safety or for warmth or just because they can.

 

* * *

 

Alex is awake and lucid when Eliza is gone and John comes back into the bedroom. “Hey,” he says, and he reaches out as far as he can with his upper arms tucked firmly against his sides.

“Hey,” John echoes. He sits on the edge of the bed and takes Alex’s hand. “How are you doing? You in pain?”

“A little, but not as much as I thought - you have to clean my drains, right? I think I need the percs for that but after that maybe I can just have some softer stuff …” He trails off, tips his head back, and sighs. “Did I really call you - you know - ?”

“Yeah, but it’s okay. You were pretty out of it.” John puts a percocet on Alex’s tongue and holds up water for him to sip, and then he kisses the scruff on his face. “You’re looking shaggy, angel. I’ll shave you later if you want.”

“No, it’s okay. I like it,” Alex says.

John hums understanding.

“Do you think I made a mistake?” Alex asks. “You know - with the surgery. Does it seem like a mistake?”

“I thought mine was,” John tells him.

“Like - your foot -” John nods, and Alex continues, “but I  _ asked _ for mine.”

“I know - I asked for mine too.”

Alex startles at that. “But that’s, like - that’s a serious surgery, taking off a foot -”

“Yeah. I mean, they gave me options. You know, keep the foot and keep trying shit - and nothing was working - or just take it off. I was tired of medication and therapy and casts and pins and shit so I told ‘em, just take it off. So it was a choice and I made it knowing it was gonna suck and the recovery was gonna be long, but I had to do it. Otherwise I wasn’t gonna have the life I know I deserve,” John says.

“Yeah,” says Alex. “Yeah. That makes sense.”

They sit quietly for a while; John empties Alex’s drains, his eyes firmly fixed on the lines. Alex’s eyes are focused on John’s prosthetic.

“Did you - miss it?” he asks into the thick silence. His voice is heavy with the percocet.

“Dude, every day,” John says, and he laughs. “Like, what happened was I woke up after surgery missing a body part. Like, I’d gone to sleep with it and woke up and it was  _ gone _ and my first thought was, shit, put it back, man, I’m not ready.”

Alex makes a soft noise.

“And, like, I was right - I wasn’t ready. But the me that wasn’t ready died when the foot came off, and the me that  _ was _ ready was there to get shit together. Like I woke up and it wasn’t just coming out of anaesthetic, it was like coming out of my grave. Melodramatic, I know,” John says, grinning at the look on Alex’s face, “but it’s true. You get it, don’t you?”

Alex doesn’t answer. Instead, he asks, “how did you get over it?”

“Foot funeral,” John tells him. Alex laughs and John continues, “no, really. Like, I couldn’t do it out loud, cause I knew no one would get it, but I totally had a little funeral for it. Said goodbye and shit. It’s okay to grieve, Alex. Part of your body is gone. But the thing is, that part wasn’t doing you any good anymore, and it’s easier to let go of a damaged piece so the whole is stronger. Right?”

“Right,” Alex agrees.

“So we get rid of the pieces we can’t use anymore and that part dies, the part of us attached to that piece of the body dies, and the rest moves on. Drop what’s damaged and keep moving. You can’t tell me you don’t understand what I’m saying.”

“I understand -”

“So, yeah, sometimes I still think about my foot and I get kinda - you know, freaked out that it’s gone. My leg doesn’t go all the way down anymore, and sometimes if my stump brushes against my other leg in the night, it freaks me out ‘cause I’m not all the way used to the way it feels - but when I stop and think about it, I think about the fact that I can walk. I wouldn’t have been able to if I hadn’t done this. That was something that was important to me so I did what I had to do to get there. You did what you had to do to get your body closer to who you  _ know  _ you are.”

“Can I - touch it?” Alex asks, and John jerks sharply with surprise.

No one has ever -

There have been doctors and doctors and doctors - nurses, prosthetists - but no one who mattered. No one close.

John touches it, sometimes, when he has to cement in his mind that it’s gone - but there’s part of it still that lingers where his fingers grasp at nothing, and for someone else’s hand to profane the scars, for someone else to clutch at the shadows -

He’s worried they’ll disperse and he’ll lose the last traces.

But those traces are what he’s teaching Alex to let go of. So what if it’s like a hand reaching into his chest and wrapping round his heart? Alex is his heart now, Alex and his stubbornness and his fear and his vulnerability, and John feels his breath catch as he says, “yes.”

He takes off the prosthetic and rolls down the liner and breathes deep, and then his residual limb, the smooth rounded end of his leg, is on the bed, across Alex’s lap. Alex looks at him, scans his face - and John must be better at bluffing than he realized, because Alex smiles and reaches out.

The world doesn’t stop. There’s just the warmth of familiar fingers on his skin. The fingers on Alex’s right hand are slightly crooked from clutching a pen like a lifeline; they look like they should be clumsy, but they’re gentle and light, skipping over the scar, putting pressure on the muscle.

“The scar healed really nice,” Alex says. “Like, you can see it, but it’s not super raised or anything. Do you think mine will be nice too?”

“Maybe,” John says. He fights to keep himself still. 

“Is this bothering you?”

“A little. I don’t -”

“No, that’s okay, you don’t need to explain -” Alex pulls his fingers away like - like he’s been scalded? No, that’s not quite right - there’s no shock, no revulsion, just fingers whisked away at the barest hint of an unspoken no. Even now, addled with opiates and still woozy with the shock of surgery, the suggestion of a ‘no’ is enough to make him withdraw instantly.

John can’t help but smile, although his leg feels tingly, the skin too tight.

“So you lost a body part,” John says. “Me too. We’re matching now. See, you and Eliza have the fact that you’re married in common. You and I will have awesome scars. Now Eliza and I just need to match somehow - what do you think about me getting my ears pierced and buying earrings that look like hers?”

“Nice try,” Alex scoffs. “You’ve had your ears pierced since high school.”

John grins and swings his leg off the bed so he can flop back beside Alex. “I mean, yeah, but that’s a secret. I’m a professional, respectable-looking heterosexual -”

He can’t finish the sentence - the laughter bubbles up from inside and bursts out, and Alex quakes with it too, both of them spewing all the nastiness that’s built up in them by vomiting laughter like bile.

Alex is swept up in the laughter and it aches and burns and turns to crying, and when his breath is nearly gone and his eyes are half-sightless with the tears, he looks to John and says, “I need to tell you what happened that October.”

And it hurts - oh God, it hurts, to hear what happened to his Alex - but he centres himself, thinks about the ache in his foot, the days of silence, the metal beneath his skin, and he endures. It’s not his story.

He endures.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> description of past sexual abuse gets a lot more graphic here. it's nothing super explicit - not writing out full scenes - but there's description and it gets kind of intense. be safe <3

John's hands shake. He needs a cigarette; he needs to phone Eliza; he needs to get out of the apartment. 

One thing at a time. 

He slaps a fresh nicotine patch onto his arm, bites down on an e-cig, and breathes in the vapour. It's sickly sweet (pomegranate? Something like that, anyway) and it makes him cough but it's thick and heady and it pulls the same as pulling from a cigarette so it works. It's enough. 

Alex had talked and talked and talked - and things stick with John, the way he described the musty smell of a mushroom cellar, the peculiar dryness of his mouth. 

“Like a ditch,” he'd said. “Old mildew. It clung. And when I spat -”

A gagging noise, an aborted sob, a struggle against surrender. The musty scent of mushrooms. Bitterness and salt and the thickness of phlegm. 

“That -” Alex is drifting now, struggling against sleep, but the words are important. John leans close to hear. “That was the first time.”

The  _ first _ time. 

It sticks in his throat, the reek of mushrooms, the thick leavings of someone else's sickness. 

It's not his story and so he endures - but he knows that it won't leave, that he'll carry this. Like Alex has been carrying it for over a decade. 

The  _ first  _ time. John has to hold it, has to take the weight, has to take the bitter, the salt, and swallow it, because Alex cannot. 

Digest it. Flush the toxins through. You'll be fine. 

October was fourteen years ago. Half a lifetime. Alex has borne this alone for so long. 

He texts Eliza:  _ how much do you know?  _

_ Nothing,  _ she texts back.  _ Only that it happened.  _

So he bears it. He can't lay this on her so he dials the phone and it rings and he doesn't even know whose number he's called until the line connects and a familiar gravelly voice says, “hello?”

“Thomas,” breathes John. “Or - Laf -”

“Right the first time. Thomas today. John, are you okay? You sound -”

“If you knew someone was - struggling - and that you  _ had _ to listen but it  _ hurt _ to listen -” John falters and corrects himself, “I know, he's the one who's really in pain, I know it doesn't affect me but I don't know how to handle it -”

“It clearly does affect you - you're crying, John.”

It's true. God, he wishes it wasn't. 

“No I'm not,” he lies, angrily wiping his eyes on his arm. Mushrooms. No wonder Alex can't stomach them. Can't touch them. 

“You're allowed to cry. What's happening?”

“He had his surgery yesterday. He's on medication and he's talking about some really messed up shit that happened to him. Eliza is swamped at work, she can't handle any more on top of how much she's already worried about.”

“Do you need us to come up there?” Thomas asks. There's the sound of baby Theo crying somewhere behind him, a gentle shushing, and then, closer, her babbling. “I know, baby, I hear you - John, do you need us to come up there? I'm taking some time off to be home with Theo and Teddy just got back from England, Aaron and I can manage a few days apart - we can help.”

John starts to say no but his mouth says, “fuck, Thomas, please. Please help me. I'm already drowning. I’ll help pay for plane tickets.”

“I'll book flights,” Thomas says. “You're okay. I'll see if we can fly out today. The flight’s not even two hours long. Can we stay with you?”

“Please.”

“Okay. You go watch a movie and calm down and I'll text you when I know what our plans are, okay?”

“Thank you,” John says. 

“Brave boy. All my love. Talk soon.”

And the conversation was so short - bare bones, a reprieve of a few minutes - but it buoys him up. 

There's strength there. He clings to it gratefully.

 

* * *

 

The routine is the same. He brings Alex food - high protein, now, to help with the healing. He gives Alex his medication. He clears the lines and empties the drains.

“There’s not a ton of fluid coming out,” he tells Alex. “A lot less than yesterday. You probably won’t need them the full week.”

“Okay,” Alex says, his eyes half-closed.

He doesn’t have to wait long - Alex starts talking, groggy with the opiates. “It didn’t stop after the first time,” he says, and then he pauses.

John’s tongue feels heavy and thick, foreign in his mouth. “How many times?”

“No -”

Wrong question, then. He tries again. “How long?”

“A year.”

A  _ year - _

“Did you tell anyone?”

“Who would I tell?” Alex says bitterly. “He was - it wasn’t a group home, I was a foster, I was in this couple’s home, and they had a son. Two years older than me. I was fourteen. What could I do? Mom had died a couple years before. No one listened when she was sick. It was that placement or back to a group home. I wasn’t exactly popular.”

John isn’t sure whether to laugh - but Alex cracks a lopsided grin so he plays along, gives a little smile, for solidarity.

“Still -”

“No, there’s no ‘still’ - I couldn’t tell anyone. Besides, the way they treated him, the way they spoke to him - he did what he wanted, they didn’t care. Indulgent. Lazy. We hated each other from day one. Why would they side with an orphan they barely knew over their own kid?”

“So you got out,” John says.

“No - not right away - but I started figuring out how to leave. Found a place that would let me work, told ‘em I was sixteen, just small for my age - it was fine - less time at home. With him.”

“During the day.”

“Right,” Alex says. “But at night -”

The scent of mushrooms. Bitter. Salt. Thickness. Old mildew, the dryness of a ditch, hot breath, a sharp pain -

Release. Release. Release.

(There are so many different ways to  _ say  _ release, to  _ mean  _ release - there’s the way Alex frames it with his mouth, the sneer on his lips past the L, the hint of a canine, a bestial snarl. John pictures him biting Mason off at the root. Well deserved, he thinks. A pity he didn’t.)

(There’s salt in semen and salt in blood and John wonders - if Alex had closed his eyes, if he’d imagined -)

(Did he imagine?)

(John doesn’t ask. Won’t ask.)

“I saved every penny,” Alex says. “I got out at sixteen. Rented a bedroom. It had bedbugs, it had silverfish - it was disgusting - but _he_ wasn’t there.”

“You got out,” John says.

“Except he came with me -”

John jerks and the horror must show on the face because Alex snaps out a brittle chuckle. “No,” he says, “not, like - he didn’t follow me. But I’d try to fall asleep at night and there wasn’t a lock on the door and there were - you know - other men in the house - I had nightmares. About them touching me. About  _ him  _ touching me. Started sleeping with anyone who’d look at me long enough for me to smile at them. If I was the one who asked for it I could pretend it - didn’t matter -”

“So when I brought you home the night we met -”

“I thought you were going to touch me,” Alex says. “I really did. And I wanted you to. If you’d taken advantage of me while I was that drunk - well, I would have let you.”

“Are you glad I didn’t?” John asks. “Or do you wish I had?”

“I don’t know,” Alex says. “But I know if you did, like, while I was out - with the drugs - I wouldn’t hate you for it. I’d understand.”

That’s the worst part.

At least, it’s the worst part until four hours later, when John gives him another dose and Alex drifts into the haze of opiates and says, unprovoked, “then there was the time he fucked me -”

_ Oh, God, _ John doesn’t say. Instead, he says: “Tell me, angel.”

And it’s mushrooms, it’s always mushrooms. Alex talks of mushrooms, of the scent, the dome of the cap, the creeping horror he feels when he looks at them. It’s muddy, for a moment - John doesn’t know if he’s talking about Mason or if it’s really about mushrooms, and then Alex says, “I don’t know the word for it - like, the threads. The threads from mushrooms so the mushrooms get nutrients and shit. Starts with an M.”

“Mycelium,” John says.

“Yeah. Creeps me out. I hate that shit - cause you can’t see it but it spreads, so when you see mushrooms you know it’s there, just under the surface. I used to think, if I breathed too deep near mushrooms, I’d get the spores in me. Like in my lungs. And then I’d grow mushrooms inside me and I wouldn’t be able to spit them out.”

So it’s really about mushrooms.

Or -

John comes to that conclusion and then Alex says, “and he smelled like - you know, I thought, the first time, it wouldn’t be so bad. I’d just lie there and pretend to like it and -”

John closes his eyes, forces them back open. He can’t show weakness.

“But then it felt like spores - and maybe he left something growing in me - I hated it, I hated it -”

“I know, angel,” John says. “I know.”

But he doesn’t know, not really, and all he can do is whisper encouragement while Alex vomits a steady stream of toxic words. All he can do is let the torrent slow to a trickle, and then die.

“Everything bad starts with M,” Alex says, his eyes closed. He’s drifting off, thank goodness, thank goodness. “Mason. Mushrooms. Mmmm -”

“Magicians,” John says, because he knows it will make Alex laugh. “Those shady fuckers are up to no good.”

“Do you mean, like, stage magicians, or actual wizards?”

“Nah, man, wizards are cool. I mean the kind of guys who are like, I can bend a spoon with my huge throbbing brain, but they’re totally lying. They deal false whimsy. That’s just disingenuous.”

Alex laughs and then huffs softly, and his breathing slows into the heaviness of sleep. John drops his fake grin and bows his head. He mourns, there, mourns for everything Alex has lost - and he does it in private, because he knows Alex would take that on. He knows Alex would blame himself.

Mourning. Another M word. And also - misery. Malady.

“I love you,” he murmurs, and he takes himself away to do his healing away from where Alex can see.

Goddamn mushrooms.

 

* * *

 

Thomas texts him, lets him know they’re coming in at 7 that night, that both the Theodosias are coming and Aaron is not, but he can get away in a week if they’re all still needed by then.

_ I owe you so much, _ John texts back.  _ Please let me know how I can repay you. _

_ Buy me a really nice bottle of wine. _

Then another text -

_ no his idea of a really nice bottle is like three kajillion dollars buy him some decent wine dont throw away your life savings -t <3 _

It makes him smile. It’s a real, genuine smile, and it hurts a little, stretching muscles that have been forced taut by his game face.

Eliza is right - it isn’t about him, and he reminds himself as he sweeps the hardwood and runs towels through the wash. He tells himself sternly that this is Alex’s story, it’s not his, it’s not something that he can really understand.

He’s cleaning out the fridge when it hits - it’s not just Alex’s story, because it’s not just Alex working to heal from it -

And he fumbles his phone out of his pocket and calls Eliza, and when she picks up he doesn’t say hello, he just launches into, “this is about him, yeah, about his trauma, but it’s not  _ just _ him. Because I’m not letting him deal with it alone anymore.”

He can hear the smile in her voice as she says, “I’m proud of you.”

“Thomas and Teddy are going to come help for a while, by the way -”

“Is that a good idea? With how Alex is?”

“You’ll see,” John tells her. “By tomorrow he’ll be fighting tooth and nail to do push ups or drink an entire keg of Monster. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

 

* * *

 

Eliza meets Thomas and the Theodosias at the airport and brings them home in a cab, and John practically rockets off the couch to hug both of them. Thomas hands John a wrapped bottle of Kahlua (“Because you need it,” Thomas says, “trust me -”) while Teddy bounces Theo on her hip and examines the apartment.

“Nice place,” she says. “How you doing, peach?”

“Been better,” John says.

“Well, duh.” There’s that characteristic Teddy eye roll. “But the deal is, now you’re great, because I’m here, and I fix everything. You got dinner organized?” John shakes his head, so she hands the baby to him and says, “then I’ll take care of that. And by take care of, I mean, Aaron gave me his credit card in case of emergencies, so we’re ordering in. Preferences?”

“Lots,” Thomas offers.

“No one asked you, fluffy. Eliza, light of my life, look at you - marriage looks  _ good _ on you! I should get me a marriage one of these days. What do you want to eat?”

“I agree with Thomas,” Eliza says.

“No mushrooms,” says John.

“Looks like you are all useless and I’m handling it. I’m in the mood for something spicy. Any good places around here?” she asks John, who shrugs, and she sighs dramatically, “alright, I guess I’ll just google it, like I’m a millennial or something.”

“Have you lost weight?” John asks suddenly. It’s a fair question - her cheeks are hollower, and her clothes hang like they’re just a little too big. Thomas opens his mouth to reply but Teddy cuts him off.

“Nope,” she says airily, although there’s an edge to her voice. “And if I did, somehow, accidentally misplace some weight, I’m gonna find it again, because I’m hungry and we’re getting approximately all the food they’ll bring us.”

Before John can ask anything else, she disappears into the spare room to take care of dinner, and Thomas smiles by way of apology. “Travel makes her a little cranky,” is what he says, but there’s an air of untruth there.

John settles himself on the couch, snuggling baby Theo, and Eliza curls up beside him. “Long day?” he asks her, while Thomas busies himself in the kitchen.

“You wouldn’t believe it -”

“Do you have any wine?” Thomas asks. “Or just the liquor in your cabinet -”

“There’s cider in the fridge. Help yourself, and if you could bring us a couple,” John says, and Thomas clicks his tongue in response.

“We’re gonna need to hunt down a liquor store tomorrow. You need some decent wine here. No wonder you’ve been suffering. Don’t worry, I’m here to take care of all your problems.”

Teddy reappears long enough to ask, “where’s Alex?” John gestures at the bedroom door, which is ajar; she disappears again, and John closes his eyes.

“Tired?” Eliza asks, and John hums in agreement.

“I could sleep for a year,” he admits.

“Good thing you can do that now,” Thomas tells him, passing cans of cider to both him and Eliza. “We’ll take care of things tonight, okay? Just relax. Sounds like it’s been a hard day.”

“You have no idea -” John yawns and rubs Theo’s back, closing his eyes. “I think I’ll just rest here for a bit. Shake me if you need anything.”

He feels the baby being lifted out of his arms, and then he’s gone, his mind filled with the dark circles under Alex’s eyes and the steel in the soft, opiate-addled voice whispering  _ release release release. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos pause time so i can actually get a full night's sleep tonight. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	15. Chapter 15

John’s alarm goes off. His phone is muted, but the phone is beneath his pillow and on vibrate, and it does a fine job of waking him up without Eliza feeling it.

Alex is awake already, staring into the darkness.

John thought, when he flew back, that he would leave the war behind - but there’s no such thing as dropping the war, leaving it on torn up soil and unfamiliar sand. It’s in his bones, underneath the surface of his skin, in fragments of metal that resurface enough that he can pluck them out with his fingertips.

He knows what it is to pull shrapnel from skin that has long ago healed over. There’s no waiting - when you see it surface you have to pull. You have to get it out.

Pluck out the shrapnel.

“Hey, angel,” he says, and Alex turns to look.

“Hey,” he says. “How come you’re awake?”

“Thought you might need some more medication. Yeah?”

“Yeah. It hurts. Did you sleep okay?”

“Perfect,” John says.

“What time is it -?”

“Four AM -”

“It’s too early for you to be up,” Alex says. “Are you just waking up to give me medication?”

“Yeah,” John says.

“I can do it myself -”

“I’m worried you’d take too many or take them too early. Trust me, angel. Besides, we can wait for them to kick in and then go back to sleep together,” John tells him. “Sound good?”

“Yeah -”

So he puts one on Alex’s tongue, gives him water, waits for it to take effect. He can see it slowly working - there are long minutes, stretching out, and then the tension slowly leaves Alex’s shoulders and he settles back with a sigh.

“Better?” John asks.

“Yeah,” says Alex, and then the silence between them grows. John dozes; he rests one hand on Alex’s arm and struggles to keep his eyes open, but he’s losing the battle until Alex starts talking.

“Do you believe me?”

“Mm?” John opens one eye. “About what?”

“About - what happened.”

“Yes -”

“I know it’s a lot. I know it sounds like a lie.”

John looks him in the eye. “I believe you,” he says. “You can tell me anything. I believe you.”

“I feel like I’m lying when I talk about it,” Alex says. His eyes are half-lidded and his voice is hushed, thick in the heavy silence of their bedroom. “I know I’m not, but it feels like - it’s too much. It feels like, maybe this isn’t so bad. Like, it was only a year. It was only my mouth. It was only one boy. It feels like I’m making it up, you know? Like -”

John opens his mouth to interrupt, then closes it. Alex glances at him.

“What?”

“Nothing,” John says, “I was going to say something but I want to hear the rest of what you’re saying first.”

“Yeah. Okay. I, like - I feel like it’s all some big game and if I just, you know, if I just stop thinking about it, if I push myself to get over it, it won’t matter anymore.”

“You aren’t lying,” John says.

“Oh,” Alex says, and he waits.

“You’re telling me the truth, and I know you are - because no one lies about shit like this. Not good people, anyway. I believe you because I can see what it’s doing to you. And it’s not something you can just get over if you push yourself.” John pauses, sits upright, and says, “it’s enough, baby. It counts. It’s real.”

Alex doesn’t respond to that. Instead he asks, “what did you think about over there?”

“Like, overseas?”

“Yeah. Did you think about me?”

“All the time,” John says.

“Yeah?”

“There’s nothing else to do there when shit isn’t exploding. So like, of course I’m gonna torture myself with thinking about how I gave up the best thing in my life,” John tells him. “I wish I could have got in contact, you know? But - it was too hard. Like, I knew you’d be furious, still, and feeling it - and you had Eliza, and I thought it would just be easier to let you two have your lives together. No sense making you dwell on me if I’m right about to die all day, every day.”

“I wish you’d emailed, or something, at least,” Alex says.

“Yeah,” John whispers. “Yeah. Me too.”

There’s a pause, and then Alex asks, “what about, like, when your foot - like what did you think about? After everything happened and it was - gone.”

“I felt sorry for myself for a little while. Then I just thought about getting back up, out of my dad’s house, back to the city. Uh, I thought about you -”

“Sounds like you were doing that a lot.”

“Yeah. I mean, how could I resist?” John kisses Alex’s forehead and puts a hand on his belly, pressing a little against the softness there. “You’re the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen, and you just got  _ more _ beautiful.”

Alex whimpers a little, and when John comes closer, he lunges forward and kisses him. John makes a soft noise.

“Please fuck me,” Alex whispers.

“We aren’t supposed to - the doctor said you need to wait,” John says.

“No straining, I know - but I need you to - John, I need -”

“Is this a good idea?”

“You aren’t him,” Alex says, and there’s something horrific there, something dark and terrible in his voice, and that’s what sways him.

John kisses Alex’s belly and pulls the sweatpants down over his hips, and Alex tips his head back and huffs. “This okay?” John asks.

“Yes,” says Alex. “Yes. Except -”

John stops and looks up at him. “Except?”

“Can you -” He breaks off again and struggles for a moment, biting back on words that burn.

“I can’t unless you tell me what you need, angel -”

“Okay, you - when we were camping and you - Eliza got mad at you, remember? You said - and it was good and I just, it made me feel safe -”

“What did I say?” John asks gently.

“You called me - you know, like, back in college, and you said it once and then you got, like, worried or whatever, but I liked it - and then when we were camping - I liked it - it makes me feel safe, you know? Like, it makes me feel small and just, just, important. Small and important and - please?”

And John suddenly understands. “Okay, baby girl,” he says. “Okay.”

Alex bucks a little, and John presses kisses against his belly as he works the boxers down Alex’s legs. “I want to be important,” he breathes.

“So important,” John agrees, as his fingers stroke up Alex’s thigh. “My beautiful boy.”

Alex’s breath hitches. “I want to be safe.”

“So safe -”

“I love it when, fuck, when you - make me feel tiny, John, like you could just pick me up and carry me, I just want to - please -”

“Do you want me to touch you, Alex?” John asks, and when Alex whimpers, he adds, “I can’t touch you unless you want me to, baby girl.”

“I want to feel small -”

“Baby, I’m not going to touch you unless you know what I’m doing and you know that it’s me and you tell me you want me to do it. If you don’t want it I won’t -”

“Please, John, please touch me,” Alex says. “I know who you are - you’re my John, and I need you -”

“Baby, hey, take a breath -”

“John, please fuck me. I need -”

“Are you okay, Alex?”

“- to know that I can say yes.”

Silence. John draws a breath and understands.

“Tell me yes, baby, and I’ll touch you,” John says. “You can say yes. You’re allowed to want this.”

Alex bursts into tears. “Please touch me, John,” he says, and there’s a relieved smile on his lips as he buries his fingers in John’s hair. 

John strokes his fingertips lightly over Alex’s labia, then dip between them, and fuck, he’s  _ soaked _ \- 

“Baby girl, you got so wet for me,” John whispers against the dark hair on Alex’s stomach. “My good boy, look at you -”

“I want you to fuck me, John,” Alex says, and his breath hitches in his chest.

John angles his fingers up into Alex, finds the spot in him that makes him groan deep in his chest, and thumbs his clit. “Think I can make you come like this?” he asks. “I can’t go hard on you - and I don’t think we should go all the way, won’t be good for your stitches - but I can be gentle and take my time -”

“If you go long enough like this it’ll happen,” Alex says.

“Then I’ll do that, baby girl.”

“You’ll -” Alex pauses and draws a breath. “You’ll get tired of it before I get - it’s okay. You don’t have to do this, John -”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!”

“Then I’ll keep going,” John says. “And if my arm gets tired I’ll switch arms. I want to make you come, angel -”

“Please -”

So John works with his fingers, works that spot inside Alex, kisses the swell of his belly and rubs the stubble of his cheek against the soft skin and looks up into the face he adores. This is a new angle - he doesn’t look  _ up _ at anyone, it’s unbecoming in someone as dominant as he is - but this feels worshipful, this feels reverent, and if it helps his boy feel more settled -

“I love you,” John says, and words spring to his lips. “You’re so, so beautiful, aren’t you? Sweet boy - look at how soft you are, look at how lovely you are. You glow like this, baby. I love the noises you make, I love the way you’re moving your hips. Oh, good spot?” he asks, as Alex arches his back and huffs. John presses harder with his fingers, rubs in tiny circles, and Alex keeps huffing; the huffing turns to panting, and then to whimpering, and John gets his other hand in there to rub at his clit properly. It’s grown so much with the testosterone that John can jack it like he’d jack a tiny shaft, and he points this out to Alex gleefully. “Shit, you got  _ so  _ big. You like it when I jack you off, baby girl? I love your little cock and the way it gets hard for me.”

“Sir -”

John realizes, with that word, how painfully hard he is. He rubs against the bed and curls his fingers inside Alex, and then Alex is coming apart, shuddering and pulling on John’s hair.

“John, fuck, sir, please,” Alex sobs. “Don’t stop, it hurts, don’t stop, don’t stop -”

His legs are quaking, the muscles in his stomach clenching so hard John can feel them even though the layer of softness against his lips. “Is this too much for you, baby girl?” he asks.

“Yes - don’t stop -”

John moves his hands as Alex comes to pieces, and then the contractions slow and Alex breathes, “okay, okay,” and he pulls his fingers out, pulls Alex’s boxers and sweats back up, pulls them together.

“I love you,” John says. His hand, the one that was inside Alex, is slick, and he holds it at an awkward angle to keep from getting it on Alex’s clothes.

“I love you,” Alex breathes back. “Um - do you need me to, like, jack you off, or -”

“I can take care of it. Do you want me to do it somewhere else?”

“Can I - watch?”

John grins. “Yeah, you can.”

He fumbles himself out of his shorts, wraps the hand wet with Alex around his cock, and pumps it furiously. There’s no build up, just the motion of his hand on himself, squeezing, wet, slick. He’s not fucking Alex, but it’s close enough - fucking the hand that was fucking his boy is enough to -

He’s over the edge before he realizes what’s happening, and come drips down his fingers, hot and viscous.

“Can I - clean you up?” Alex asks.

“My hand?” John offers it to Alex.

Alex sucks John’s fingers into his mouth, trailing languidly up along them with his tongue. “I had to make sure,” he says around John’s hand.

“Make sure of -”

“You don’t smell like mushrooms.” He finishes cleaning up and slides John’s fingers out of his mouth with a popping noise, his face bright with pride. “I did good?”

“You did so good, baby girl,” John whispers, and his heart breaks.

 

* * *

 

When John wakes again, it’s almost 9, and Alex is peacefully asleep. Eliza is gone already; she’s left a sticky note by the door that says:  _ love you please be good don’t set the apartment on fire -e _

Is it for him or for Alex? Either option is equally plausible.

Coffee means getting up, which means putting on his leg and struggling into a hoodie and joggers. It’s almost too much; his eyes are still half-lidded with sleep - but the siren song of caffeine is impossible to resist.

Teddy is out on the couch, sitting up with Theo asleep in her arms. “Hey,” she says.

“Hey,” John says back. He forces himself into the kitchen to fumble coffee together and manages to remember to ask, “you want a cup of coffee while I’m making it?”

“God, yes,” Teddy says back. “I knew I flew up here for a reason.”

He dozes upright, leaning against the counter, until coffee happens, and then manages to bring both his own mug and Teddy’s to the couch without any horrible mishaps. “You would not believe how hard it was to get this to you,” he says, as he sits beside her and hands her the mug.

“You need this more than I do, clearly. Sleep okay?”

“I was up early with Alex. You?”

Teddy grins. “Theo was fussy but I made her pere deal with it. I popped her out, he can handle the crying. He’s sleeping in so I figured I could take her off his hands for a couple hours. Sounds like you’re ready to tag team, too.”

“More than ready. Alex has had a rough couple days,” John admits.

“So what’s the plan? Where are we helping you?”

“Meds and drain cleaning, mostly. I need to give him a bath later. I’d like to see if we can get him upright, take him out for a walk - but we need to trick him into that,” John says. “Say we want to take Theo out and that he needs to show you how shit has changed here since you moved away.”

“Cool. And then dinner?”

“He needs protein. We can figure it out from there.”

“Cool.”

“Teddy?” John asks, and then he pauses and says, “you know what, maybe I shouldn’t -”

“You’re gonna ask if I’m okay, aren’t you?” She looks at him and he gazes levelly back. They’re both freckled - John has never noticed, how has he never noticed - and they mirror, for an instant: they’re both exhausted, both worn thin, both terrified.

John almost breaks. He wasn’t expecting to see that fear in her eyes.

“It’s mostly in remission,” she says. “So. There’s that.”

“I see,” John says.

“This is the part where you tell me you’re sorry, and I pretend to get some satisfaction out of that,” she tells him. “And then you feel bad for me, and I feel guilty for telling you that I might die or whatever.”

“Or we could just not do any of that,” John offers.

“I don’t really know how to go off script for this -”

“So let’s make up our own script. Cancer, right? I thought you were a Scorpio -”

“Oh my God,” she says, and she dissolves into laughter. “Fuck you, John Laurens -”

“I’d have to ask my girlfriend and my boyfriend, but I’m sure we could work something out.”

She smacks him on the arm and he grins. “Listen, if you’re joking about  _ my  _ shit, I’m gonna joke about yours - I’ll cut off your other foot, just watch -”

“You’ll have to catch me first,” he says. “And I’m a cyborg now, which means I’m just naturally great at physical shit, which means I’ll outrun you, no problem.”

“Checkmate,” Teddy admits.

“I’m a Scorpio too,” John tells her. “We’re practically twins.”

“And we’re both being betrayed by our piece of shit bodies - double twins.”

“Glad to see you have a healthy sense of humour about it -”

“A  _ healthy _ sense of humour? Was that one on purpose or not?” she asks. “You know what, nevermind, fuck you either way. I demand your coffee in payment for your horrible insensitivity.”

“That’s fair,” John admits, “but I’m not giving it to you. You love me.”

“Ugh, I hate it, but I do, you awful boy.” She flashes her broad smile, and for a moment her face looks exactly the same - her eyes, a brown so dark they’re almost black, crinkling at the corners, full cheeks, a grin so wide it looks like it’s too big for her face.

John headbutts her shoulder gently. “Missed you,” he says.

“Missed you too,” she says back. “We’ll get through all this shit okay.”

“I need to ask - what are your chances, Teddy?”

“Not spectacular,” she admits. “But I’m spending time with my daughter, and we’re doing what we can. Nothing we can do but see what happens. It’s not really, like,  _ if _ it’ll come back, more like  _ when. _ So that’s a waiting game, and then when it happens, we figure out what to do next.”

“Lots of waiting,” John says.

“Yeah,” Teddy agrees. “But, man, I’m okay with it. You know? Not, like, heyyy, I’m gonna die, let’s throw a party - but more like, I’ve done some neat shit. I popped out a kid, I had a great relationship for a while, I got a degree, I’m part of a family. If I’m done, I’m okay with what I finished before I gotta go.”

“I get it,” John says. “I totally get it.”

“Shit, I guess you do.”

John takes her hand and Teddy takes a deep breath. “Can I just - tell you something?” she asks. “One regret, I guess.”

“Yeah, dude. Of course.”

“Even if I get through this - I’m done with kids. Like, Theo’s the only one I get to have. And that’s kinda sad. After my dad died, it was just me and my mom, and I know she wanted more kids, but my dad dying was just too much for her. She couldn’t go and do the whole relationship thing again. So I thought, if I have one kid, shit, I can have two. Or three. Lots of little ones. But I can’t - it’s just her -”

“Yeah?” John asks.

“Yeah,” Teddy says. “She’s it for me. That’s kind of the only bad part. I don’t get to get married and I don’t get to have more kids, even if I make it.”

“Why not married?”

“Who would I even marry, John? I don’t have - actually, you know what, that’s not the important part. Sorry for dumping all this on you.”

He puts his arm around her and shakes his head. “Nothing to be sorry for. Glad to listen.”

“Thanks,” Teddy says. “I get the sense TJ and Aaron are kinda all listened out, you know? I’ve been talking about it since I was diagnosed and I know they’re having a hard time too.”

“How about a deal? You listen to me and Eliza, and we’ll listen to you. Sound okay?”

“Yeah. Sounds perfect,” Teddy says. She snuggles up closer, holds Theo against her chest, and uses her free hand to steal John’s coffee. “And I’m still taking this.”

“Wow, fucker,” John says, but he can’t help laughing. “I guess you did warn me.”

Teddy smiles at him and takes a swig from his mug. “I earned this by suffering through your horrible jokes,” she tells him.

“You earned it,” he agrees. “Thousand percent.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for every comment or kudos i receive i will do a total of one (1) push up. help me get shredded. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> enter hercules

On the fifth day after surgery, John checks Alex’s drains and says, “you’re probably good to get these out.”

“Oh, thank fuck,” Alex says. “Rip em on out, John -”

“Jesus, no! We’re taking you to the doctor.”

“Smartest thing you’ve ever said,” Eliza mumbles from under the covers. “If I just call the school and say I don’t have legs do you think they’ll let me have the day off?”

“Go to work,” Alex says. “Don’t be like me. I’m the worst example alive, and that’s something I’d do -”

“Shit. Alright. On my way to work then.” She rolls out of bed and grumbles as she puts herself inside of her clothes like all her limbs have suddenly lost feeling.

John, who is somehow not distracted by his girlfriend losing the fight against her clothing, calls the doctor. Alex tries to listen to the conversation, but he’s captivated by Eliza as she says, “I’m going to sue the person who invented clothes,” and attempts to pull her t-shirt on inside out.

“You’d have to go back in time, like, forever,” Alex tells her. “Try again. Still the wrong way.”

She gets it right side out and pulls it on again, this time backwards. “This is the worst thing to happen to anyone,” she protests.

“We have an appointment in a couple hours,” John says, tossing his phone on the bed. “And Herc’s new shop is pretty much set up, he’s invited us to come by before he opens - what if we swing by with Teddy and Thomas? Take a look?”

“Cool,” Alex says. “So, if we get to the doctor, like, right now, and then yell -”

“No,” Eliza cuts in, dropping her deodorant on the carpet and barking her shin on the dresser.

“Just, you know, hoot and holler -”

“Absolutely not,” says John, as he picks up the deodorant and hands it to Eliza.

“Until they’re forced to take me sooner -”

“You behave yourself, you horrible animal,” John says.

“John will put you on a leash,” Eliza says, drowning in her sweater. “And muzzle you.”

Alex grins. “Hot.”

Eliza manages to get her head through the neck hole of her sweater and glares at Alex. “Suddenly,” she says, “I’m very, very glad I’m going to work.”

“Take me with you,” John pleads.

Eliza laughs in his face.

 

* * *

 

“So I’ll meet you there?” Teddy asks, hauling herself off the sofa like there’s concrete in her bones.

“Yeah,” John says, tying Alex’s shoes. “Like, I’ll text you, cause this asshole might be feeling kinda gross after getting his drains out -”

“I’ll be feeling great, don’t even worry,” Alex interrupts.

“- but I’m sure we’ll be there by, like, two or so. You got the address? Herc said it’s kinda in a weird place - like, you gotta go up all these bizarre stairs -”

“I’ll figure it out,” Teddy says. She stands on her toes to kiss Alex’s cheek and adds, “good luck, peach. Don’t punch any doctors.”

“No promises,” Alex says. John leads him out the door and then Teddy is alone, aside from Thomas, asleep in the guest room with Theo nearby.

Emptiness is the hardest part. With no one around Teddy can feel the ache and the exhaustion eating her from inside, something ravenous and insatiable. In the silence, she can almost hear her insides betraying her.

She picks up her phone, starts typing a text to Angelica, then deletes it. She doesn’t know what she wants to say.

She settles for,  _ whats up _ ?

What time is it in London? Teddy wonders idly if she’s yanking Angelica out of sleep, wonders who’s lying beside her, pictures the big white bed in the centre of her airy London bedroom. Sheer, gauzy curtains, a ruffled bedskirt, cream carpeting. A white vanity. Someone’s glasses, maybe, on the nightstand? Two phones, charging side by side? Who takes up the space that Teddy used to occupy? How easily has she been replaced?

She googles  _ nyc london time difference _ and squints. Five hours - that can’t be right, can it? That means that it’s afternoon there, that Angelica must be having tea or just relaxing in an armchair with a book. Teddy imagines a white armchair, a silk and linen carpet, plush pillows in dusty rose and faded heather that aren’t for sitting against, just for colour on the spotless upholstery of an eggshell sofa.

Her phone buzzes.

_ Why are you texting me? _

I miss you, Teddy doesn’t say. I regret breaking up with you, she doesn’t add. Do you still love me? she doesn’t ask.

Instead, she types,  _ just wondering how things have been. you working yet peach? _

_ Don’t call me that, _ is the terse reply, followed closely by,  _ goodbye, Teddy. _

She puts down the phone.

The emptiness gnaws.

 

* * *

 

“I could have backflipped out of there,” Alex declares as John helps him out of the taxi in front of the brick walk-up Hercules described. Ivy meanders over the brick, and the windows of the second floor are framed by tasteful grey curtains. One window has a banner over it, emblazoned with a lion in gold and the name  _ Nemea _ .

“Sure you could have,” John says. “I’m sure the doctor would have been thrilled with you backflipping after he pulled pieces of tubing out of your chest wounds.”

“He would have been super impressed,” Alex insists.

“Can you handle stairs?” John asks.

“That’s not an answer -”

“Yes, because I’m ignoring every single lie you tell me from now on. Are you able to do stairs? Herc says it’s one floor up.”

“Can  _ you  _ do stairs?” Alex challenges. He tilts his head pointedly at John’s cane.

“I’m amazing at stairs,” John says. “My prosthetic is great for stairs and shit. I can do it if you can.”

“Deal,” Alex agrees.

It’s then that Teddy turns the corner. She waves at them, but doesn’t make any effort to speed up; she ambles slowly, and as Alex vibrates impatiently, her face breaks into a big grin.

“She’s pissing me off on purpose,” Alex whines.

“Obviously,” John agrees. “Start up the stairs, and she’ll hurry up.”

He’s right. By the time they’re halfway up, Teddy has appeared, puffing indignantly. “You can’t just ditch me,” she complains loudly from the bottom step.

“Watch us,” John calls back. Alex laughs.

And of course, Alex is the first through the door. The space is so very  _ Hercules  _ that it hurts - garment racks everywhere, clothing arranged by time period and then organized by length and, within length groups, hung in rainbow order. There’s a chaise longue in one corner, burgundy velvet with brass accents and wooden legs. It’s ugly in a charming way. The wall is raw brick, hung with fabric so loudly patterned that, in any other space, it would look garish. And standing in the middle of it all, surrounded by the disaster that somehow  _ works, _ is Hercules.

“Welcome,” Hercules says, beaming ear to ear with pride, and then he takes Alex’s face between his huge palms and kisses him squarely on the forehead. John is next - Herc kisses his forehead too, then squeezes him in a back breaking hug. “Had to hug you twice as hard, dude,” he says as John groans. “Can’t hug your boyfriend. Little guy’s chest is  _ fuuuuucked, _ I hear.”

“Wanna see?” Alex says.

“Nope,” says Herc. “I wanna keep my lunch down. But thanks.”

He looks at Teddy last, and something in his face changes. His eyes are melancholy for a moment - and Teddy feels herself tense, ready for Herc to start crying. 

He’s always been so sensitive.

But, to her surprise, he doesn’t say a word. He just hugs her tight, kisses her forehead as well, and says, “good to see you, man. I missed you.”

“You too, dude,” Teddy grins. She’s forgotten how easy it is to slip into the way Herc talks.

Hercules turns and gestures at the room. “So this is my sales floor,” he says. “I mean, like, I  _ say  _ sales floor, but I don’t really sell much outright. Most of this is, like, you know, you’re doing a short run or whatever, you come in and grab something to rent. I do alterations but mostly basting, you know? So it’s not permanent seams. Shorten a pant leg, take in a sleeve, whatever. The real magic is back here. Come check it out.”

The next room is his fitting area, which is lit by a myriad of floor lights and full of mirrors at every imaginable angle.

“Whatever your heart desires, I can make,” Herc says. “And, shit, here’s the best part -”

His work room. Two sewing machines - an antique treadle Singer and a Janome Horizon - and a serger sit on their own work tables along one wall, and another wall is taken up by rolls of fabric and an entire rack of thread in every colour imaginable. A whole family of dressmaker dummies are grouped in one corner. Herc wipes away what  _ must _ be a real tear.

“Holy shit,” Teddy says. “It’s like you sold your soul or something. Like, I can’t imagine how else you could afford this.”

“You don’t wanna know how I got my hands on that Singer,” Herc agrees.

“You should make us all sick clothes,” Alex suggests, half-joking, but before he can finish his sentence, Herc laughs and turns to start rummaging in the long row of drawers under the huge windows.

“Dude, I totally forgot,” he says. “Like, I was gonna bring you these when you got out of surgery, but then - like, things got so busy - I swear I didn’t forget. Maybe I forgot a little. Here -”

He hands Alex a paper grocery bag stuffed full of fabric. Alex frowns quizzically, sets the back on the ground, and pulls out the top layer.

“Buddy,” he says softly, and then he whistles.

“Snaps are magnetic,” Herc tells him. “You know, so you don’t have to lift your arms a lot to put it on. Good post-surgery shit.”

It’s a flannel shirt, printed with stars and planets - every five-year-old’s dream shirt. Alex falls in love immediately.

Half of the bag is full of shirts with the same design: loose fitting, easy to put on, breezy, a little oversized for maximum comfort. The other half is stretchy pants, the flies made from the same magnetic snaps.

“You’re a hero,” Alex tells Herc.

“So, what I’m not getting is how you’re affording this,” John breaks in. “Like, you have this amazing huge space. How many square feet?”

“Uh - like, 1500? Not super sure,” Herc says.

“So it’s gotta be costing you at  _ least _ a couple grand a month. Probably a lot higher -”

Herc smiles, but doesn’t reply.

“How are you paying for it? You can’t possibly be breaking even yet -”

“Come on out to the sale floor,” Herc says. “I have better chairs out there. Also I don’t like y’all breathing on the Singer. He’s finicky. Likes his space.”

It isn’t until the four of them are settled, Alex and Teddy on the chaise longue, John and Herc on cushions on the floor, that Hercules finally says, “okay, so, like. You know I’m selling clothes for stage shit, right? Like, screen costumes too, but mostly stage.”

“Yeah,” Teddy says. She puts her feet in Herc’s lap and leans back.

“And you know how actors are always, like, desperate for auditions - and also what the directors are looking for -”

“No way,” Alex says, grinning. “So you -”

“I sell tips, man. Come on, like I’m gonna do something like this and  _ not  _ make a little extra on the side?” Herc idly unties one of Teddy’s boots and continues, “I don’t charge a ton, you know? And I usually wind up with a group of, like, five or ten actors coming in and asking for ‘em. And it’s easy, ‘cause directors come in with their costumers, they talk while I’m setting them up with shit - like, they obviously think I’m just some big dense wall or something, cause you would not  _ believe  _ the shit I overhear. So I take all that shit, all the things they’re looking for, and sell it. Keeps everyone happy. People know they get better shots at roles when they come to me.”

“That might be kind of illegal,” John says, but he’s grinning too.

“That’s my dude,” says Teddy. “Tie my boot, asshole.”

“Love you too, dude,” Herc says. He ties each lace into a separate decorative knot.

Alex finds himself leaning against Teddy and suddenly realizes his chest hurts. “Can you take me home?” he mumbles to John, who struggles to his feet to help Alex off the couch.

“Herc, come over sometime,” John says. “We have Teddy and TJ around, and the little baby nerd - and I think Aaron’s coming up soon, too, so we all need to hang out.”

“Cool,” Herc says.

“I think I’ll stick around for a bit, if that’s cool?” Teddy asks.

“Dude, of course. Let’s get some food and catch up. You probably have tons to tell me.”

Teddy doesn’t miss the look in Herc’s eye.

The four of them walk down to the street together, and they pause for a moment to say goodbye outside the front door of the building. Herc tugs Alex’s ponytail gently and says, “love you bunches, dude, don’t you ever forget that. You let me know if you need anything and I’m there in a second.”

“I know,” Alex says. “Love you too.”

John kisses Herc firmly on the cheek and Hercules breaks into a huge grin.

“See you soon?” John asks.

Herc says, “absolutely. I’ll be there tonight probably. Forgot how much I missed y’all.”

With that, the boys leave, and then it’s just Hercules and Teddy. Herc takes Teddy’s hand and squeezes it.

“You don’t need to tell me anything,” Herc tells her. “But if you wanna, I’m all ears. Got it?”

“Yeah,” says Teddy. Her mouth is dry.

“Good. Then let’s get some fucking food, dude. I haven’t eaten in, like, half an hour. I’m famished.”

As they walk, Herc puts an arm around Teddy and pulls her against his side. He’s warm and solid and  _ present _ in a way she’s been craving for so long.

She lets herself melt into him.

It’s nice to feel less alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey remember when i updated this? me neither
> 
> yell at me for my long absence on [tumblr](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> teddy and herc get some bonding time

Herc takes Teddy to the little cafe-slash-bakery around the corner from Nemea. “Best ten dollar coffee you’ll ever drink,” he tells her as he holds the door open for her. “Plus, like, they have these cinnamon buns - you can’t even argue, dude, you’re having one - sometimes I buy half a dozen and take em home and tell myself I’m just gonna have one a day and then they’re all gone by midnight. I hate it. They’re amazing.”

“I guess I have to have one then,” Teddy grins.

Herc buys her a mocha and himself a hazelnut steamed milk and two cinnamon buns for each of them, and for a few minutes neither of them talk. They tear into their cinnamon buns and as the first bite touches her tongue Teddy  _ moans. _

“This is unfair,” she says through her mouthful.

“Right?” Herc grunts through his. He licks frosting off his lips and says something that sounds vaguely like, “I can’t get enough of these.”

“My pants are all gonna fit again,” says Teddy, and then she shovels the cinnamon bun into her mouth as fast as she can manage.

When they’ve both torn through their first buns and have started picking at the second, Herc takes a deep swig of his steamed milk and then asks, “so, what’s up with your life?”

“I know what you’re asking,” Teddy says. She drops her fork. Suddenly the cinnamon and frosting in her mouth tastes bitter.

“Dude, like I said, you don’t gotta talk about that shit if you don’t wanna.”

“Herc, I  _ know  _ you. That’s what you really want to ask.”

“Yeah, it is,” Herc says. “But I’m not gonna ask ‘cause you don’t seem like you wanna tell me. So, don’t tell me. Tell me what’s important. I love you, dude, and that means not pushing you.”

Teddy smiles. “You’ve changed, huh.”

“Yeah, man. Like, I still wanna know all that shit, but -” He cuts himself off, chews his lip a little. “Look. Things get fucked up. Way I see it is I can either help unfuck ‘em by just listening, or I can make ‘em worse by pushing. So, time to make shit better.”

Teddy stares pensively into her mocha. “I will tell you,” she says finally. “Just not this second.”

“Cool. Tell me what else is up.”

“I broke up with Angie,” is the first thing that falls out of Teddy’s mouth.

Herc nods. “Okay. Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” Teddy says. “But I need to.”

“So. Talk all you need. Also, you should hold my hand.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause the world always looks a little brighter when you’re holding a hand.” He reaches across the table and offers his huge broad palm. It’s calloused, just a little, where a sewing needle or a crochet hook rests against his fingers, and when Teddy puts her hand on his, she’s startled by how warm and soft his palm is. He squeezes gently. His hand is massive, wrapping around hers like a shield. Like a wall.

It feels safe.

So she talks.

“I went to London, you know, so I could sorta - I mean, she called me one day and told me she was lonely, so I went over and I spent some time with her. And while I was there I was - I was in remission, and I wasn’t doing so badly -”

Hercules nods. 

“I thought I was doing okay but the doctor said that - like, it’s aggressive. It’s gonna come back. And I didn’t think that it was gonna work out, you know, with her. Because I’m here, and I’m doing all this  _ fucking  _ chemo and I have to be here with my daughter, but she’s there and I don’t wanna do distance. Not when I’m this sick, and not when I have a kid. Like, she’s gonna be over there at least a few years - she wants to do architecture there, and that’s  _ great _ but it’s not what I want. I can’t leave my daughter. I can’t leave my doctor. And shit, Herc, if worst comes to worst, I want to die with my  _ family. _ So I ended it.”

Herc looks down at their hands. Teddy’s is lighter than his, and she has freckles on her forearms; Herc’s nails are rough, trimmed right down, the edges frayed where he clearly chews them. Teddy wonders what’s going through his mind as he stares. Finally, he raises his head and says, “that makes sense. Dude, I woulda done the same thing.”

And that’s a huge load off - knowing he won’t start crying or looking at her like she’s already buried. She takes a deep breath, and then suddenly she’s sobbing.

“Wanna leave?” Herc asks. All she can do is nod.

He comes around to her side of the table, gathers the cinnamon buns, tucks them into a napkin, and puts an arm around her shoulders. As she stands and wobbles towards the door, she’s grateful for his bulk. Nestled against his side, she can hide from the world; she can pretend she’s in a castle, within impenetrable walls, away from the world, away from all the things that  _ hurt. _

It isn’t until they’re back at Nemea that Teddy feels safe enough to really breathe. Herc locks the door, settles her on the chaise, sits beside her, and says, “if you wanna keep talking, you do that. And if you don’t that’s cool. I’m here if you want cuddles.”

So naturally she drapes herself across his lap and cries into his leg. He strokes her back and waits for the storm to pass, no words, just the steady slow rhythm of his breath and his hand on her back.

After a hundred years of this she gulps air into her lungs and shudders and says, “I don’t want to die, Herc.”

“I know, dude,” Herc says.

“But I’m probably gonna and I can’t do anything about it. So why do I keep going back to chemo? Why am I gonna have an operation? I’m just gonna die, and I don’t want to keep trying and trying.”

“It’s shitty.”

“It’s more than just  _ shitty, _ Hercules!” she yells. “It’s not even anything  _ cool, _ like if I got shot or got in a car crash or something at least that would be  _ interesting! _ But this is just my useless body fucking up and it takes so long and everyone just hates looking at me like this! But it’s not like you’d understand - you don’t fucking know anything.”

Herc doesn’t say anything. She glances up, expecting tears, but he just looks at her. There’s no pity in his face. She wasn’t expecting that.

“You’re right,” he says. “I don’t get it.”

“No, you don’t,” she says, wary.

“But like - does it matter? I’m not gonna get it, but I’m here. I don’t hate looking at you. You’re pretty as fuck, my dude. Not like you’re hard to look at.”

That draws a smile out of her. “Surprisingly straight of you, Hercules Mulligan.”

“Buddy, get out of here with that. You know my feelings on that romo shit. You just look good and I like looking at pretty stuff.”

The smile turns to laughter, and before she knows it her head is on Herc’s shoulder and she’s covering his cheek in kisses.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” she says.

“I’m sorry I don’t get it. Dude, I just want to be here for you. Okay? So you yell at me all you want if it helps.”

“Felt good to get it out,” she admits.

“Good. Then that’s why I’m here. I love you, Teds. Like, more than I can even tell you.”

Teddy melts against him, buoyed up by this solid, gentle man, and she murmurs, “I love you too,” and for once she doesn’t feel so lost.

 

* * *

 

When the sky begins to go dark and he says to her, “I’m gonna take you home,” she thinks about her daughter and the person who is married to the man who fathered Theo and the way the air in that apartment smells like a hospital but with more coffee and less mourning, and she shakes her head.

“No,” she says. “Take me to your place, Herc.”

“Hey, is this, like, how a date usually ends up?” He grins at her. “You know, the whole, like, person swooning over me and my hot bod -”

“You are pretty hot,” she says, and she flutters her eyelashes at him.

“Gross,” Hercules says with delight. “Okay, I’m taking you home, but the second you start any of that romance shit or go for my no-no square I’m kicking your ass to the curb.”

“That’s fine, I’m not gonna hit on you. I just broke up with the girl I thought I was gonna marry, remember?”

“Yeah, that sucks. Forget that, though, ‘cause you and I are gonna have the best night ever. Bailey’s, Netflix, pizza?”

“You know the way to my heart,” Teddy says. “Maybe I’ll just marry you instead.”

“I’ll be the best wife you could ever ask for,” Herc agrees.

 

* * *

 

And then she wakes in the night, nestled beside Hercules in his bed - and there’s room for her, she doesn’t feel as though she’s being pushed out, but she feels like she’s on the outside nonetheless.

It feels silly, it feels childish, to wake him up, but she shakes Hercules awake and whispers, “Herc, I’m scared.”

“Mm?” His voice is a deep rumble, one that barely makes it past his lips and to her ears.

“What if I never get another chance? What if Angie was it and I fucked that up?”

Hercules rolls over, wraps around her, and pulls her back tight against his chest. “She’s not your last chance,” he mumbles. His breath is hot on her ear and she’s reminded suddenly of when she would hold Angie like this, wrapped around her body.  _ Angie burrito, _ she’d say, and then the two of them would laugh -

Hercules is still talking.

“You’re flawless, dude. Anyone would be lucky to be with you.”

“Yeah, but I’m also really sick -”

“The sickest,” Herc agrees. “Sick as hell. You’re so fuckin sick -”

“Not that kind of sick, Herc.”

“Mm. Right. The cancer. Well, fuck that shit. I still love you and you can’t make me stop, so there.”

One of his hands rests on her belly, palm heavy against the softness. She’s not in danger of her hip bones showing, not by any means; Teddy has always been fat, always been soft and curvy, and she’s lost weight but she isn’t ever going to be skinny. She’s reminded of when she was carrying Theo, when she would sneak into bed with TJ and Aaron and one or both of them would rest their hands on her belly and feel Theo kick. She wasn’t a part of their marriage; she wasn’t in love with them; but  _ God, _ she loved them, loves them now, and she misses that. Misses being the centre. Misses the endless possibility of family that she carried within her. That possibility is dead, her ovaries withered and scarred, and she wonders who she might have carried, the children she might have known.

“Maybe I’m not worth that love,” she says.

“What do you mean?” Herc is sleepy, his words slurred.

“I’m going to die - and I can’t have any more kids, I can’t make anyone else happy anymore - what’s the point in loving someone who isn’t even going to stick around?”

“Nothing will ever make me stop loving you, dude,” Herc says.

“What about when I’m dead?”

“Sucks to suck. You won’t escape my love. You’ll be all, like, chilling somewhere, maybe in some kickass afterlife, and you’ll get smacked in the face with something and be like, shit, what was that? Oh fuck, more love from Hercules, I thought I’d gotten away from all of that.”

Teddy laughs despite herself. “Keep going,” she whispers.

“Like, seriously, once you die I’m gonna keep talking to you. I’ll put a picture of you right here on the night stand and I’m gonna tell you all about my day when I go to bed. I’m gonna wake up and say good morning to you. And I’ll never stop, ever. Make you a birthday cake every year. Watch shitty movies with you.”

“Promise?”

“Promise, dude. Dead doesn’t mean gone.”

And it’s so strange, but she feels warm. She feels safe. She wriggles and rolls until she’s facing him, and then kisses his nose.

“Thanks, dude,” she says, and she can’t fathom why, but she asks, “can I kiss you?”

“Nope, but I’ll kiss your face,” he says.

“Cool.”

So he peppers her face with kisses, her cheeks, her chin, her nose, her forehead, and then he kisses each eye and says, “get some sleep. Tomorrow I’m taking you out for breakfast.”

“Love you,” she whispers.

“I love you too.”

And it’s funny - it should be hard to get back to sleep, but it isn’t at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos fuel the suffering. yell at me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com)


	18. Chapter 18

“Teddy’s out for the night,” Laf says, lounging on the couch between John and Alex. She’s tapping away idly at her phone screen as she talks.

Eliza pokes her head of the kitchen. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine - she’s crashing with Herc, I think she needs a break - but it’s always, you know, concerning when she’s out at night. Like, I know she’s okay right now but I still worry -”

“Makes sense,” John says. He cradles baby Theo against his chest.

“What’s up with Teddy?” Alex is frowning sternly at a glass of Ensure, examining the way the liquid looks grainy as it swirls. It’s disgusting, but it’s full of protein, and he’s had enough of John nagging at him to get some calories into his body. It’s easier just to drink the shit than to argue.

“I just don’t like her being away all night, is all,” Lafayette says. “I know she’s an adult and she can make her own choices, but it kinda freaks me out. Like she’s not in the hospital anymore, she can do what she wants, but I still feel like I gotta take her to treatment in the morning or whatever. I dunno. The feeling isn’t really going away. That’s more my problem than hers, but you know - it’s still there. Aaron gets it too.”

“Treatment for what?” Alex asks.

Eliza comes out of the kitchen with a cup of tea for herself and a beer for John. She sets the drinks on the coffee table, curls up on the couch beside Alex, and says, “well, you know, after all that happened in the past couple months -”

“What, what happened?” Alex is looking back and forth now between John and Eliza and Laf, brow furrowed with confusion. “Is everything okay? What are you talking about?”

John bites his lip. “Did we not -”

Laf grunts noncommittally.

Eliza puts a hand on Alex’s leg and says, “Alex, did you not know -”

“Know what?” he asks.

“Oh, honey,” says Eliza, and suddenly Alex is terrified.

 

* * *

 

Angelica Schuyler wakes up every morning in a bed with pristine white bamboo sheets, in a room with eggshell walls, in a flat where everything is luxurious and perfect.

Perfection, however, doesn’t begin to describe the person she shares her flat with.

Angie rolls over, glances at the alarm clock on Joan’s nightstand, kisses the hint of stubble along Joan’s jaw. “Morning,” she murmurs; as she snuggles close she hooks her knee over Joan’s hip and presses her cold feet against the warmth of the broad thighs she loves.

Joan grumbles when she’s shaken out of sleep, a deep, thrumming rumble that starts low in her chest. “It’s not properly morning until noon,” Joan mumbles.

“That’s afternoon, love.”

“It’s when I wake up, which makes it morning.”

Angie wriggles over her until she’s lying half on top of Joan and peppers her face with kisses. “You always say you don’t wake up until noon, but then you get up with me anyway -”

“I _get_ up, I don’t _wake_ up. Two different things, love. I’m walking around asleep.”

Angie nuzzles under Joan’s chin. Joan is taller and broader than her, so when they snuggle like this, she feels small and safe; but often Joan is the one who feels small, who wants to be snuggled, so Angie usually makes herself large and wraps around her as best she can. These moments, tucked under Joan’s chin, are rare, and she savours them when they come.

The wall above their bed is dominated by a huge painting of Angelica leaning her chin on her hand and reading a book. It’s dreamy, ethereal, Angie’s hair a halo around her head and cascading down her shoulders, her clothing and the background painted in soft pinks. They’d met through a mutual friend, someone who knew Joan needed more models, and Joan had spent forever - far longer than she’s ever spent on a painting, she’s fond of telling Angie - getting everything just right, as an excuse to spend time getting to know the lovely Angelica Schuyler.

The only problem, the only dissonance in this perfect flat, this perfect bed, snuggled next to this perfect woman, is that every morning, Angelica expects to wake up to someone else lying in bed with her.

It’s not as though she’s still in love with Teddy. By the end, things had cooled to platonic adoration - something more like friendship than anything - but that was Teddy’s fault, it was what _Teddy_ wanted, and Angie had just had to go along with it. It wasn’t as though she could negotiate with a breakup.

“I don’t like you seeing me like this,” Teddy had said. And:

“I can’t keep travelling in between bouts of chemo - you know the radiation from flying is probably just making my ovaries die faster.” And:

“If you moved back here, maybe things would work - but I’m not moving to England for you, I’m not leaving my kid - you know she’s the only one I’ll ever have. You understand that, right? So I can’t just leave her. She has her daddies but she needs her mama too. That’s what I told Aaron when he knocked me up.” And:

“I love you, but that’s not enough to make this work.”

So Angie’s booked off a couple of weeks and Joan has taken care of all her commission work and after her next art show, they’ll be off to New York. Angie made the excuse that she just wants to see her sisters - but she needs to see Teddy, too, not to declare eternal undying love or whatever but just to know that she’s alive and okay. Well, maybe not okay. Just alive. Living. Holding on.

And it’s been so long since they’ve spoken. She misses how easy it used to be to talk to Teddy. She misses the ready smile and the booming laugh that seemed to bubble up from deep in her chest. She misses Teddy’s freckles and the soft brown of her eyes and the long braids that cascade down over her shoulders -

No braids anymore. Angie had forgotten that.

She misses how _soft_ Teddy is, how tender and nurturing and gentle. There’s nothing sharp about her. Her body is soft, rolls and curves, round and welcoming, and she puts up a huge attitude but beneath all that her heart is quiet and yielding. She never seemed to run out of love. Even months after they’d split, Teddy had been open and amiable. It hadn’t been her fault. Angie had to let go, but she can’t help wondering if she made the right choice to sever herself and forfeit Teddy’s affection.

Angie misses that, and as she kisses Joan she wonders how to reconcile that past love with this new love, the woman she adores with all her heart, the woman she _knows_ she’ll marry.

“I love you,” she whispers to Joan, and she puts Teddy out of her mind.

 

* * *

 

Teddy is up, sitting on Herc’s windowsill and staring down at the street, when he finally rolls out of bed and wanders over to say hi.

“How long have you been up?” he asks. He digs in the fridge, pulls out a jug of coconut milk, and adds, “want a smoothie? I make _sick_ smoothies. Like, protein powder and shit, but you can’t even tell cause I also pack that shit full of bananas and berries and whatever.”

“Yeah, man,” Teddy says.

“So you been up a while, then?” Herc busies himself peeling bananas and cramming an obscene amount of fruit, coconut milk, and protein powder into his blender, and then holds up a single finger and hits the button. Teddy waits patiently for the whirring to stop before she replies.

“Yeah,” she says. “I don’t really sleep in anymore. Got used to getting up early with the kid and then time zone differences from travelling fucked me up.”

“Shit, that’s right. Weren’t you just in England? How’s Angie?”

Teddy draws in a breath. “Okay, so, don’t tell Aaron and TJ, but I wasn’t actually in England. I was in Switzerland again -”

“Yeah, heard you were just hanging around there every so often,” Herc says.

“I keep hearing about these treatments they do - like, apparently it’s way better than here, and our insurance doesn’t want to keep covering my chemo. They say at this point there’s - fuck, like. Okay, they say there isn’t any point -”

Herc doesn’t say anything, but his fingers clench hard on the glass he’s pouring smoothie into.

“So, like, what do I have to lose? May as well try out some of those treatments, right? Seems like mostly just chemo but I could get them to just, you know, take all my equipment out - they say that and the pills they gave me and another round of chemo and radiation might do it. It’s not guaranteed, but I don’t want to die, Herc. And they won’t do it for me here, now. They say it’s a lost cause.”

“So every time you’ve been visiting Angie -”

“Yeah,” says Teddy. “Switzerland instead. For, like … I dunno … six months? Maybe longer? I get my prescriptions filled, the PARP inhibitors, I get some chemo done, and I come home. Every few weeks. Thank God we have the money for it. They just … let me take the money. They don’t ask why.”

Herc is quiet.

“This is why you can’t tell them I haven’t been seeing Angie,” Teddy says. “They think I’ve given up. I can’t keep putting this on them.”

Herc nods silently. He’s still for a moment, and then he pours the rest of the smoothie into a second glass.

“Are -” Teddy’s voice is small. “Are you mad at me?”

“You’ve been going alone?” Herc asks.

“Yeah,” she says.

“You shoulda asked me to come with you, dude,” he says.

“I’m not gonna tear you away from your life, Herc. Like, you _just_ opened Nemea. I can’t ask you to pack up and travel with me, wait around for me to do more chemo and recover from surgery -”

“I can get someone to look after the business. I’ll take out a loan for the travel costs. Next time it happens, I wanna go with you. Like, if you straight up don’t want me to then I’m not gonna push you to say yes, but I hate that you’re going alone and there sure as fuck isn’t anyone else who’s got the time or the ability. They’ve all got kids or angry little trolls named Alex to look after. I just got myself. And I wanna take care of you, man -” He comes towards her, hands her a glass, and kisses the top of her head.

“You’re talking like a boyfriend, man,” Teddy says.

Herc clicks his teeth on the edge of his glass. “I mean, I guess,” he says. “Look - there’s this thing, right? Where it’s like a relationship but it’s none of that romantic shit -”

“Yeah,” Teddy says.

“It’s like - platonic dating -”

“Yeah, man.”

“So what if we did that shit? What if we did the platonic dating thing? That way I’d know you have a good dude taking care of you.”

Teddy takes his hand and kisses the back of it. “Don’t rush into anything, dude,” she says. “Like, it’s so sweet of you to ask - but let’s take this stuff slow, okay? Seems like you’re asking just ‘cause you’re worried about me and I don’t want to do it that way. If we’re gonna be anything more than friends, I want to do it right.”

“Cool. Fair,” Herc says. “But you can bet your ass I’m gonna ask again.”

“Good,” Teddy says, and she smiles. “Maybe next time I’ll say yes.”

 

* * *

 

When everyone goes to sleep and the apartment is quiet, John takes a cold beer out onto the fire escape. He hasn’t had a moment to himself for a long time, and God, he loves Alex and Eliza - but he misses his solitude, too. Between the two of them, and now Aaron and Lafayette and the baby, there’s so much noise and it presses in on his head and makes him jumpy and twitchy and it _hurts_ in his spine, in his ribs, in his scars.

A hand on his shoulder. He stiffens, goes completely still.

“John,” says Eliza.

He relaxes.

“Why did that scare you?” Eliza asks, and John swallows.

“You startled me, that’s all,” he says.

She sits beside him. It’s a cool night; there’s a breeze, and she shivers a little. He puts his arm around her and she nestles against him.

“If I were wearing a sweater, I’d be the one holding you,” she says.

“Okay,” John says amiably. “Trade?”

“Deal.”

He shucks his sweater, puts it over her shoulders, and then snuggles up under her arm. She idly traces patterns on his shoulder with her fingertips.

“So why were you so startled?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I had to always be on my toes during the war. Nothing special.”

“You didn’t leave it behind.”

Why lie? “No.”

“But you don’t talk about it.”

“No one wants to hear it.” He laughs, but it comes out bitter and hollow.

“I do,” she says.

“I don’t want to think about it enough to talk about it,” he tells her, and she makes a soft noise of understanding.

“When you’re ready,” she says, I’m here.”

“And what if I’m never ready?”

“What was it you said about shrapnel?” she asks him. “How you have to pull it out when it surfaces, even if you’re not ready to?”

He laughs again, but it’s a little warmer this time. “You’re clever,” he says.

“I’ve kept Alex alive this long,” she says. “Give me a little credit.”

“Yeah,” says John. “Yeah.”

He takes her hand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments and kudos do my job so i can just write instead. chat to me at [alexangery.tumblr.com](http://alexangery.tumblr.com) and consider [buying me a coffee](https://ko-fi.com/A02514GB)


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